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COPYHIGUT D£P08m 





















SCOTT BURTON 

IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


Stories by 

EDWARD G. CHEYNEY 


SCOTT BURTON, FORESTER 

SCOTT BURTON ON THE RANGE 

SCOTT BURTON AND THE 
TIMBER THIEVES 

SCOTT BURTON, LOGGER 

SCOTT BURTON IN THE 
BLUE RIDGE 




JIMMY TRIED DESPERATELY TO STAY HIS TEAM. 






SCOTT BURTON 

IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


J* Br 

E'd^CHEYNEY 

AUTHOR OF “SCOTT BURTON, FORESTER,” 
“SCOTT BURTON, LOGGER,” ETC. 



D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 

NEW YORK : : 1924 :: LONDON 




COPYRIGHT, 1924, BY 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 


* * 
• • • 



PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 


SEP -4 *24 


©C1A800G84 


I 




■>n- v-. <i. J!- S'- -2-4- 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Off to a New Job . i 

II. The Mystery of the Two Stores . 8 

III. The Old Man's Story. 18 

IV. Old Jarred.26 

V. Hopwood.32 

VI. Scott Talks with the Agent . . 40 

VII. Scott Receives “Aid" from His Boss 49 
VIII. Scott Loses His Neutrality ... 59 

IX. Scott Makes Another Rescue . . 70 

X. Scott Meets Jarred. 84 

XI. A Visit to Jarred’s Cabin ... 90 

XII. Scott Asks for Bids. 100 

XIII. Foster Wait Demands the Contract 109 

XIV. Scott Makes a Trip to Washington 120 

XV. Scott Hears Some Rumblings of the 

Old Feud.128 

XVI. Scott Has an Interview with 

Sewall.139 

V 








CONTENTS 


CHAPTER **GE 

XVII. Hopwood Takes a Trip . . . . 15° 

XVIII. Dick Turns Gentleman .... 159 

XIX. Hopwood Throws Away His Iron 

Hat .169 

XX. An Attempt at Arson. 180 

XXI. Scott Finds the Still. 190 

XXII. Hopwood Gets Jarred’s Promise . . 202 

XXIII. A Close Call. 209 

XXIV. Scott Goes after the Marshal. . . 221 

XXV. Hopwood Sends Foster a Message . 229 

XXVI. Foster Revives the Feud .... 238 

XXVII. Scott Arrives at the Village . . 246 

XXVIII. The End of the Feud. 254 

XXIX. Jarred and Sew all Meet .... 260 


vi 







SCOTT BURTON 

IN THE BLUE RIDGE 











SCOTT BURTON 
IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


CHAPTER I 
OFF TO A NEW JOB 

T HE ticking of the old grandfather clock in 
the neat little New England house was 
the only sound to break the stillness. So still it 
was that any one approaching the house could 
have heard the clock distinctly and would cer¬ 
tainly have overlooked the silent figure in 
the old rocking-chair. But a man was sitting 
there, nevertheless, completely absorbed in his 
own thoughts. 

An old gentleman appeared in the doorway 
and stood there for an instant before he saw 
him. Then his face lighted up. 

“Hello, Scott! I thought you had gone out 
and I wanted to talk to you about your new 
assignment. Mother tells me that you have 
your sailing orders now.” 


i 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


The son looked at him with a smile, but his 
face still wore a puzzled frown. 

“Yes,” he said, “I have my sailing orders, 
but—” 

“Good or bad?” his father interrupted anx¬ 
iously. “You don’t look overjoyed with them.” 
The old man was really worried. 

“I don’t know just what to think of them,” 
Scott frowned once more and opened the letter 
for the hundredth time. “They have assigned 
me to a timber sales job in the North Carolina 
mountains.” 

“Well, that sounds good enough. They say 
that is a beautiful country and it is a place I 
have always wanted to see.” 

“Oh, the country is all right,” Scott said 
brightening, “and I am crazy to go there, only 
I had my mind set on going back to my old 
place in the southwest.” And again he 
frowned. “It is not the country but the job 
that I am afraid of. Sometimes I am almost 
sorry that I caught those range thieves out 
there in Arizona.” 

“Why, Scottie boy! If it had not been for 
that you would never be where you are in the 


2 


OFF TO A NEW JOB 

Service to-day,” his father remonstrated 
proudly. 

"Oh, I know that it made me solid with the 
Forest Service and gave me a chance at a super¬ 
visor’s job years before I would ordinarily have 
had one, but they have been using me as a 
sort of detective ever since. I was lucky 
enough to catch those timber thieves in 
Florida, but I am no sleuth and I’ll fall down 
on that job sooner or later.” 

"But, Scott, I don’t believe this is detective 
work. I expect they have heard what a tre¬ 
mendous success you made of your own log¬ 
ging job last winter and want you to look after 
the logging work down there.” 

"Yes,” Scott admitted, "I think you are 
partly right. But why transfer me down there 
when there are local men who understand those 
methods? Logging in New Hampshire and 
logging in North Carolina are very different 
propositions.” 

"Maybe the local men cannot handle it and 
they know you can,” his father suggested 
proudly. 

"Of course that’s what you think, dad,” 

3 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


Scott said affectionately, “and it may be what 
they think, but I am afraid that there is some¬ 
thing else wrong.” 

This rather gloomy conversation was broken 
up by Mrs. Burton, who had come to the door¬ 
way unnoticed. ‘Well, well, why worry over 
something you don't either of you know any¬ 
thing about? Maybe we do not know what 
you are going to do in North Carolina, but we 
do know that you have to leave us in the morn¬ 
ing and we don't want to waste what time we 
have left worrying. Come on in to supper.” 

Scott laughed. “All right, mother, you 
always say the sensible thing. I’ll bet there is 
nothing wrong with the supper no matter what 
may be the matter with the new job.” 

So they went in to supper cheerfully enough 
and all three spent the evening poring very 
busily over the atlas, and trying to see what 
they could find out about the new country. 
Caspar, the little town where the headquarters 
were located, was not shown on the old map, 
but they found out a great deal about the coun¬ 
try in general, and it was bedtime before they 
knew it. 


4 


OFF TO A NEW JOB 

“There,” Mrs. Burton exclaimed cheerfully 
as they said good night, “I am satisfied. Fd 
be willing to go to that country on any old 
kind of a job.” 

Scott was not ordinarily given to worrying 
much and by the time his train pulled out of the 
quiet little Massachusetts village the next 
morning he was looking forward eagerly to 
seeing this new country and had forgotten all 
the imaginary troubles which the new work 
might bring. 

His orders were to report direct to Caspar, 
but he had half a day between trains in Wash¬ 
ington and took the opportunity to visit the 
Forest Service offices. He met a few friends 
and became personally acquainted with a num¬ 
ber of men who had before that been to him 
only a name attached to the end of an official 
letter, but he learned nothing definite in regard 
to his new work. The chief of the particular 
branch in which Scott was employed was out 
of the office and the inspector who was to meet 
him in Caspar had already gone to North Caro¬ 
lina. That looked as though there must be 
something unusual there, but Scott resolutely 
5 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


refused to worry about it any more and settled 
down in the car seat to enjoy the scenery of 
Virginia, which was altogether new to him. 

The little shanties scattered all through the 
country and the grinning black faces which 
crowded one end of the platform at every sta¬ 
tion reminded him of Florida, but the country 
itself was very different. Instead of the flat 
sand-plains covered with dense stands of yel¬ 
low pine the train wound through rolling clay 
hills and hardwood forests until it lost itself in 
the foothills of the mountains just as the sun 
went down. Scott peered eagerly out of the 
car window until he could no longer see even 
the telegraph poles beside the track. 

Morning found him at a junction point in 
the heart of the mountains. These mountains 
were not like the Rocky Mountains as he had 
known them in the southwest. There was none 
of that stark grandeur of the bare rocky slopes 
and flat-top mesas, but there was a peaceful 
beauty about them which reminded him more 
of the overgrown Massachusetts hills; soft 
green slopes towering above the valley to a 
surprising height, considering the low absolute 
6 


OFF TO A NEW JOB 

altitude of the range. There was as much 
difference between the valley and the mountain 
peak as there usually was in the Rockies, but 
Scott remembered that the valleys in the 
Rockies were as high as many of these peaks. 

A little branch line carried him down a nar¬ 
row valley between what appeared to be flat- 
topped, unbroken ridges clothed in every kind 
of hardwood tree that Scott had ever heard of, 
and capped with a rim of dark green spruce 
which fitted over it like a black cape. Here and 
there a peak rose conspicuously above the level 
ridge. 

“It must be great in those forests,” Scott 
thought, “and the views from those peaks 
ought to be worth seeing. I tell you there has 
got to be a lot of trouble in this job if I can't 
enjoy myself in this country.” 

He was trying to catch a glimpse of a par¬ 
ticularly high peak which showed itself every 
now and then above the dark spruce ridge when 
the conductor called, “Caspar,” and Scott had 
to hurry to get his pack sack and suit case off 
the train at his headquarters. 


CHAPTER II 


THE MYSTERY OF THE TWO STORES 

IT THEN the dinky little train pulled out and 
* * left Scott standing on the platform, he 
realized why he had not seen the town of Cas¬ 
par from the car window. It consisted of a 
railroad station, two stores, four dwelling 
houses and another large, decrepit-looking 
building which could not easily be classified, 
and they were all on the other side of the rail¬ 
road track from Scott's position in the car. 
From that side of the train no one would have 
suspected the presence of a town anywhere 
in that vicinity. The mountain slope came 
down almost to the railroad track and the 
forest on that side was almost unbroken. 

The station agent seemed quite interested at 
the sight of a stranger. He watched Scott for 
a minute and seemed to be studying him in his 
own slow way. Finally he seemed to decide 
that it would be safe to speak. 

8 


THE MYSTERY OF THE TWO STORES 


“Howdy! Stranger in these parts, be ye?” 
he drawled. 

“Yes,” Scott said, “is there a hotel here or 
any place where a man can stay?” 

“Reckon you can stay at the hotel. Ain't 
no place else you could stay in this town and 
live.” 

Scott thought at the time that that was a 
rather peculiar remark for any one to make, 
but when he found that the station agent also 
ran the hotel he charged it up to professional 
pride. When he saw the hotel he wondered 
how any one could have any professional pride 
in it. 

The hotel turned out to be the nondescript 
building which stood, or rather sat, apart from 
the others at the end of the street. It was a 
large, rambling, barnlike structure a story and 
a half high. Half a dozen gables stuck up from 
the side of the roof. It looked very old and 
its first coat of paint had never been renewed. 
The ground around it was as bare as the weath¬ 
ered clapboarding. There was no sign of any 
attempt at beautifying either grounds or build¬ 
ing. A rough picket fence separated it from 
9 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


the rest of the village, but just why no one could 
tell, for the ground inside the fence was, if 
anything, more barren than that ouside. Al¬ 
together it was a forlorn-looking place. 

The proprietor led Scott upstairs into a room 
large enough for a banquet hall. It looked even 
more desolate, if possible, than the outside of 
the house. It contained a bed covered with an 
old patch-work quilt and two boxes—one to 
serve as a chair and the other as a washstand 
(you could tell which was the washstand by 
the old tin basin half full of dirty water). 

Scott looked around the room in dismay, but 
he had made up his mind that he would have 
to put up with it when he caught a sickening 
odor, as of a dead mouse, that apparently came 
from the closet. That he could not stand. He 
had heard of the touchiness of these people, 
and he did not want to offend them, especially 
as he would probably have to make the place 
his headquarters for some time. But he had 
to get out of there by some means. 

“You haven't any bedroom on the first floor, 
have you?" he asked, trying to conceal the dis¬ 
gust he actually felt. “I may be here a long 
io 


THE MYSTERY OF THE TWO STORES 


time, and there may be a great many people 
coming to see me, and a ground-floor room 
would be much more convenient." 

“Shore, I reckon we can accommodate you," 
the man said, and he led the way apathetically 
downstairs again. 

He opened a door off the long back porch and 
stepped back to let Scott enter. It was a palace 
compared with the upstairs room. The furni¬ 
ture was old, but everything was there down 
to a rag carpet on the floor, and, moreover, 
everything looked clean. 

“This will be fine, ,, Scott said as he glanced 
quickly about. “What time do you have 
dinner ?" 

“Twelve o'clock, most times, but there ain't 
anything certain about it." He paused at the 
door on his way out. “It ain't none of my busi¬ 
ness, but you ain't a U. S. marshal, be you?" 

“No,'* Scott laughed, “nothing like that. 
Why, are there many moonshiners around 
here?" 

“I ain't saying anything about moonshin¬ 
ers," the man replied in the same dull tone. “I 
was just going to tell you that this was a 


ii 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


mighty unhealthy country around here for the 
U. S. marshal.” 

Scott did not know whether this was meant 
as a friendly warning or as a threat, and before 
he could ask anything more about it the man 
was gone. As he was not in any way con¬ 
nected with the United States marshal, he 
thought no more about it. 

Left to himself, he began to examine the 
room more closely. It was clean all right, but 
the general effect of it was most grotesque. 
The high, carved head-board of the old wal¬ 
nut bed might have had a place in a medieval 
museum, but here in this room it looked out of 
place like everything else in it. When Scott’s 
eyes fell on the wall paper, he stood aghast. 
He counted thirty-seven different patterns, 
each a small square evidently taken from a 
country storekeeper’s sample book, and only 
a third of the wall was covered. The east win¬ 
dow was heavily curtained with portieres, lace 
curtains and a shade. Scott peeped out. It 
opened almost into the mountainside and no 
human habitation was in sight. The glass door 
opening on to the back porch—which was by 
12 


THE MYSTERY OF THE TWO STORES 


far the most frequented part of the house—was 
not curtained at all. It was a queer place, but 
Scott had been in worse, and he decided that 
it would have to do. 

He had been so interested in finding a place 
to stay that he had forgotten all about the man 
from the Washington office who was to meet 
him here. He went out to inquire for him. The 
dining room opened on to the porch next to his 
room and the kitchen was next to that. 

The man was nowhere to be seen, but there 
were three women in the kitchen and they were 
feverishly discussing Scott’s probable busi¬ 
ness. Complete silence fell on them all when 
he appeared in the doorway. 

“Pardon me,” he said. “Do you know 
whether Mr. Reynolds of the Forest Service 
has been here?” 

The women looked at each other as though 
an important problem had been solved before 
any one answered. 

Then one of the women answered with a 
question: “Are you Mr. Burton?” 

“Yes,” Scott said. 

“Mr. Reynolds left here this morning. He 
13 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


said that if Mr. Burton, the new supervisor, 
came to tell him he would be back to-night or 
to-morrow morning. I was looking for a much 
older man/’ she added looking at him curi¬ 
ously. 

“Well,” Scott laughed, “time will correct 
that.” 

Scott noticed that these women were all siz¬ 
ing him up just as the station agent had done 
a little while before. He went back to his room, 
and looked in the glass to see what could be 
wrong. He could see nothing to attract atten¬ 
tion. He tried to forget the occurrence and went 
out to see the town and surrounding country. 

He wandered down the street, if the road 
between the two stores could be called a 
street, and wondered why there should be two 
stores in such a place. Judging from the un¬ 
broken forests on the mountain slopes he did 
not see where enough people could possibly 
come from to support any store at all. 

On the porch of each store there was a small 
group of idlers holding down the dry-goods 
boxes, and Scott saw that they were sizing him 
up just as the women had done. Moreover, 
14 


THE MYSTERY OF THE TWO STORES 


the stare of these men seemed to be distinctly 
unfriendly. It made him feel uneasy. He was 
glad when he had run the gauntlet of un¬ 
friendly stares, and was out in the open road 
with only the railroad station and the moun¬ 
tains before him. But he had one more exam¬ 
ination to stand. The station agent was watch¬ 
ing him from the corner of the platform. In 
fact, Scott caught him squatting down to get a 
better view of him even before he came out in 
the open. He resented this officious spying on 
his movements and turned aside into a moun¬ 
tain road which wound its way up a timber- 
covered slope. 

“Heh!” Scott turned to see the man coming 
towards him at what was an unusual gait for 
him. “Didn’t buy anything at the store, did 
you?” 

Scott looked at him indignantly for an in¬ 
stant, but he remembered again that he had to 
live with these people, probably for a long time, 
and did not want to offend them. “No,” he 
replied as pleasantly as he could. “Why?” 

“I just wanted to know,” the man replied 
frankly. “But if you haven’t done it, don’t.” 
15 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


The man had evidently noticed that Scott had 
resented his interference and he walked away 
with considerable dignity without making any 
further explanation. 

Scott started to call him back but changed 
his mind and continued his walk up the road. 
He wanted to get away from these inquisitive 
people for a while, and try to think things 
over. Fate, however, seemed to have decided 
otherwise. He had gone a little more than a 
quarter of a mile up the winding road through 
the heavy hardwood timber when he came to a 
little cabin set back only a few feet from the 
road behind the inevitable picket fence. An 
old man was sitting on the porch, and he sized 
Scott up with the same all-consuming curios¬ 
ity, but his gaze seemed to be wholly friendly. 
There was none of that furtive animosity he 
had felt rather than seen in the groups down 
at the store. 

“Howdy, stranger?” the old man greeted 
him pleasantly. “Be you the new supervisor?” 

The old man's manner was so evidently 
friendly, and his curiosity so frank that Scott 
warmed up to him at once. 

16 


THE MYSTERY OF THE TWO STORES 


“Yes,” he admitted cheerfully, “Em the new 
supervisor.” 

“Haven’t bought anything at the store yet, 
have you?” the old man continued in his! 
friendly way. 

There was that same question about the 
store and Scott stiffened for an instant, but 
he thought better of it. Maybe he could learn 
something from this old man. 

“No,” Scott said, “I have not bought any¬ 
thing from the store. Tell me, why does every¬ 
body ask me that? I have not been in this 
town much more than half an hour and two 
people have already asked me if I have bought 
anything at the store. What is the meaning 
of it?” 

The old man looked at him thoughtfully for 
a minute as though hesitating to answer the 
question. Then he answered slowly as though 
pronouncing final judgment: 

“Because when you do buy anything from 
one of those stores, you might as well leave the 
town for all the good you’ll ever be able to do 
in this country,” and he turned as though to 
enter the house. 


17 


CHAPTER III 

THE OLD MAN’S STORY 


HE old man’s statement seemed so ridicu- 



A lous that Scott hesitated to believe it. He 
thought that the man must be making fun of 
him, but he recalled the station agent’s warn¬ 
ing. There must be something in it. The 
whole community could not be conspiring just 
to play a joke on him. Before the old man 
reached the door he called him back. 

“Just a minute, please. You are the second 
man to warn me not to buy anything at that 
store. Why shouldn’t I? What has buying 
at the store got to do with running & national 
forest? I can’t see the connection.” 

The old man looked at him and smiled sar¬ 
castically. “Neither could the other two men 
who came here before you, and they both had 
to leave.” 

Scott’s curiosity was now thoroughly 


THE OLD MAN’S STORY 


aroused, and he determined to pump an ex¬ 
planation out of this man. He smiled win- 
ningly. “Then tell me the secret so that I 
shall not have to follow them.” 

At his change of tone the old man’s sarcasm 
disappeared immediately. “Well, if that’s the 
way you look at it,” he said with all his old 
friendliness, “why, maybe I’ll try to tell you. 
You couldn’t tell those other fellows any¬ 
thing.” 

“I would certainly appreciate it,” Scott said, 
as he settled himself down on the fence to lis¬ 
ten. “I have come here to run this^forest, and 
if that store down there has anything to do 
with it, I want to know about it.” 

“Come in, come in,” the old man repeated 
hospitably. “It’s a long story, and you might 
as well sit down to listen to it.” 

Scott gladly stepped inside the fence, and 
took a seat opposite his host on the porch. 
“By the way,” he said, “I thought I saw two 
stores down there in the village. Which one 
do you mean?” 

“That’s just the point. If there was only 
one store there you could buy all you pleased, 
19 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


but if you buy anything from one of those 
stores now, the fellow who owns the other one 
would sure get you.” 

“But can’t a man buy where he pleases in 
this country?” Scott asked indignantly. His 
spirit rebelled at any one dictating to him the 
way he should run what he considered to be 
his own business. 

“Not and live in peace,” the old man an¬ 
swered sadly. “Til tell you the story, and 
then you can do as you please. 

“You see the people here in the mountains 
don’t move around much. When a man gets 
used to these mountains he never wants to live 
anywhere else. The children don’t marry, and 
go off somewhere else to live; they just put up 
another shanty, and live close to home. The 
families stick close together, and form a kind 
of settlement. Most everybody in the settle¬ 
ment is kin to somebody else. 

“The Morgans live in the settlement up on 
this side of the valley, and the Waits over there 
on the other side. They were good friends 
and getting along fine till the railroad come 
down the valley. They called old Zeb Mor- 


20 


THE OLD MAN’S STORY 


gan and old Foster Wait together to decide 
where the station ought to be. They got into 
a row over it somehow, and before anybody 
could interfere Foster had pulled a gun and 
shot Zeb through the heart. That was forty 
years ago. Well, it was a murder all right, 
and no excuse for it except Foster’s notorious 
temper. The sheriff took Foster off to jail, and 
that ought to have ended it. Would have 
ended it, too, if it had not been for Zeb’s half¬ 
witted brother Jim. Everybody knew Jim 
wasn’t exactly right in his head, but he wor¬ 
shiped Zeb, and when Zeb was shot he went 
plumb crazy, disappeared and nobody saw or 
heard of him for a week. Next thing anybody 
knew Jim had turned up in the middle of the 
Wait settlement and shot two of Foster’s 
brothers. 

“Well, they should not have held the Mor¬ 
gans responsible for the actions of a crazy man, 
but they did, and the fight was on. The dead 
line was drawn down the middle of the village 
street, and every time a Wait stepped over 
that dead line, he had to duck Morgan lead, 
and the Waits were just as quick on the trigger 


21 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


on the other side. Every once in a while some 
one on one side or the other would get drunk 
and shoot across the line. 

“It got pretty bad. All the kin folks got 
mixed up in it, and there was a funeral every 
two or three months. There has not been 
much shooting for the past five years. The 
Morgans got the worst of the scrap in the early 
days, and there’s only old Jarred and his two 
sons left of the direct descendants of Zeb. 
Unless you count his little granddaughter Vic. 
She’s the fightenest little wildcat in the whole 
bunch. Of course there are lots of relatives, 
but they had cooled off pretty much till this 
national forest business came along to stir 
them up again. 

“But I most forgot the store. You see old 
Tom Wait had a store in the village before the 
trouble began, and it was all that was needed, 
maybe a little more, but of course after the 
trouble no Morgan would deal there. Been 
shot if he’d tried it. So Jarred’s boys had to 
start a store on the other side. That’s where 
the two stores come from. Buy anything from 
one of them, and you have all the other side 


22 


THE OLD MAN’S STORY 


of the mountain down on you. Now maybe 
you can see why I warned you.” 

Scott sat in silence for a moment while the 
old man watched him curiously. He was 
dazed by what seemed to him an impossible 
situation. How could such a horrible state of 
affairs exist in the heart of a civilized country? 

“Isn’t there any way of bringing the two 
families together and stopping this senseless 
fight?” Scott asked earnestly. “Surely they 
must see how it is hurting them both. Has 
any one ever tried to stop it?” 

The old man shook his head sadly. “The 
Morgan boys might quit if they could find any 
way to do it. They know it is only a question 
of time till they will be killed. Three Mor¬ 
gans can’t hold out forever against a dozen 
Waits, and that is what it means because their 
kin folk are not going to stick by them much 
longer.” 

“It would not be possible to persuade this 
man Jarred to give up the feud?” Scott asked. 

The old man smiled sadly. “It’s clear you 
ain’t seen him, stranger. Old Jarred would 
give away anything he’s got except his pride, 
23 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


but it takes only one look at him to see that 
he’d never give up to an enemy. ,, 

Scott sat for some minutes pondering this 
extraordinary situation, and the old man con¬ 
tinued to watch him rather wistfully. Would 
he try to make peace between these warring 
factions, or would he ignore them, and be run 
out of the country as the other two had been? 

When Scott looked up he smiled at the old 
man gratefully. “I don’t know what I can do 
to stop this thing. It is pitiful to think of that 
old man eaten up by his hatred, and holding 
out in his pride against the world. Maybe I 
cannot do anything to stop it, but I certainly 
do not want to do anything to stir it up. I 
can’t tell you how much I appreciate what you 
have told me. To whom am I indebted for this 
information and advice?” 

“My name is Sanders. ‘Old man’ Sanders 
they call me.” 

“And I take it that you are not mixed up in 
this feud on either side. Who else is not in it?” 

“The station agent. He has to be neutral.” 

“And how did you happen to keep out of 
it?” Scott asked. 


24 


THE OLD MAN’S STORY 


“Because I am a Quaker,” the old man an¬ 
swered proudly, “and do not believe in fighting. 
And now,” he added with the same sad smile 
Scott had noticed several times before, “one 
of my daughters has married a Wait and the 
other a Morgan.” 

Scott rose to go. “Well, Mr. Sanders,” he 
said earnestly, “I have almost as good a reason 
as you have for keeping neutral. I am cer¬ 
tainly obliged to you for your advice, and I 
may need your help again. In the meanwhile 
I shall keep away from those stores, and try 
not to stir anything up.” 

Scott walked slowly on up the mountain 
road with bent head, and when the old man 
had watched him out of sight he continued to 
gaze dreamily at the turn of the road where 
the young man had disappeared. 

“He’s not a fool like the others, anyway,” 
he said aloud, “and I think he’ll stay here.” 

Scott wandered on. He wanted to find a 
place where he could be alone and think. 


CHAPTER IV 


OLD JARRED 

T WO miles farther up that same road a 
little log cabin stood back from the road 
about fifty feet behind its weather-beaten 
picket fence. The little yard, like most of the 
yards in that section of the country, was per¬ 
fectly bare, and at first glance it seemed to be 
deserted. But if a member of the Wait settle¬ 
ment had tried to enter the yard, he would in¬ 
stantly have been aware of a very real presence. 

Seated on the doorstep of the cabin, and so 
motionless that he might have been a part of 
it, was a man clad in a black sateen shirt and 
homespun trousers tucked into heavy Con¬ 
gress boots. Judging from the silvery white¬ 
ness of his hair he might have been eighty-five, 
but from the strong, stern lines of his thin, 
smooth-shaven face he might have been forty- 
five. There was no sign of nervousness. Not 
a finger moved and his eyes rested unwaver- 
26 


OLD JARRED 

ingly on a small clearing half a mile down the 
mountain where he could catch a glimpse of 
the road to the village. 

A white flag waved for an instant in the 
clearing and the lines of his face relaxed. The 
sternness had given way to an expression of 
anticipation. The man’s eyes shifted from the 
clearing to the bend in the road just below the 
cabin. Other than that there was no move¬ 
ment. It would have taken a careful student 
to have discovered that an all-consuming curi¬ 
osity was gnawing at this man’s heart. He 
seemed to be without a care in the world. Cer¬ 
tainly no one could have guessed that he was 
suffering from a suspense which was almost 
unbearable. 

Suddenly a slip of a girl, not more than thir¬ 
teen years old, and small for her age, came 
running around the bend in the road. The 
brown of her sunburned legs twinkled in the 
patches of sunlight that came through the 
trees, and her blue-checked calico dress flut¬ 
tered in the wind as she ran with unfaltering 
stride. It was not an impatient burst of speed 
at the end of a journey. She had been run- 
27 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


ning steadily all the way from the village, al¬ 
most two and a half miles away and nearly a 
thousand feet below. 

At the sight of her the man arose and 
stretched his gaunt form to its full height. 
The coming of the child meant much to him, 
but he showed no sign of curiosity. She 
stopped before him with chest heaving and 
dark eyes aflame. 

“He went to Wait's,” she panted. 

The lines in the old man's face tightened, 
and he seemed to grow taller, but he made no 
answer. 

“That was the man who came yesterday,” 
she continued furiously. “He bought a sack 
of tobacco at Wait’s this morning, and went 
up on the other mountain. The other one 
who came this morning didn't go in nowhere. 
He ain't much more than a boy.” 

“Where is he?” the man asked sternly. “At 
the hotel?” 

“No, he went there, but he only stayed a few 
minutes. Then he walked right through the 
village and started up this way. I passed him 
just out on the road.” 


2 8 


OLD JARRED 

“Did he see you?” 

“No,” she answered contemptuously. “I 
was in the brush, but he would not have seen 
me if I had run right by him. He was looking 
at the ground and frowning.” 

The man turned the news slowly over in his 
mind before he answered. 

“So the new supervisor is a young lad, is 
he?” 

She nodded. 

“And he did not go in anywhere,” the man 
continued meditatively. “What sort of looking 
man is he?” 

“He's two inches shorter than you are, 
grandpa, but he is heavy and strong,” she said 
confidently, with the air of one who is accus¬ 
tomed to gauge the physical builds of men. 
“He's wearing one of them uniforms, and he's 
dark and good looking.” 

He gave the girl a quick, searching glance. 
“Well, don't make friends with him yet, Vic. 
He has not gone into Wait's, but he has not 
been in our store either. Let's wait till we 
see what he is going to do.” 

“Me make friends with one of those govern- 
29 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


ment men,” she burst out contemptuously. 
“They all of them side with the Waits. Ed spit 
in his face if he spoke to me.” 

Her grandfather smiled approvingly. “Oh, 
I would not do that, Vic, not till he gives you 
some reason to. This one may turn out to be 
all right.” 

“Then let him keep away from the Waits, if 
I have to be polite to him,” she snapped. 

The old man took the girl tenderly by the 
shoulders, and looked at her earnestly. 
“You’re the best Morgan in the bunch, Vic, 
and we’ll have to stick together. The boys 
may stick by me, but they would give the whole 
thing up if they saw a good way out. You 
and old Jarred are the only ones left to uphold 
the honor of the family.” 

The child shook the mass of black hair back 
from her face, and looked squarely into the old 
man’s eyes. The concentrated hatred, and 
fury of three generations gave her the appear¬ 
ance of a witch. “Don’t you worry, grandpa. 
Let daddy and uncle Bob give up if they want 
to, but no Wait will ever cross the line while 
I am here to help you.” 

30 


OLD JARRED 

Her grandfather patted her head proudly. 
“That’s the girl. I knew I could count on you, 
Vic. Now go in the house, and get some lunch. 
Then we’ll go down to the village again. I 
want to get a look at that handsome young 
man myself.” 

Vic glared at him angrily. “I had to say 
that to tell you what he looked like. Let him 
go into the Wait’s store, and I’ll show you 
what I think of his looks.” She tossed her 
head defiantly and stalked into the house with 
great dignity. 

The old man watched her go with a twinkle 
of pride in his eye and smiled affectionately. 
Then he turned away and looked sadly down 
into the valley. These were indeed sad times 
when the honor of the Morgans rested on a 
girl of thirteen, and an old man past sixty, but 
his gaunt frame straightened unconsciously at 
the thought, and his chin set all the harder. 
If the Waits thought that they could walk 
over him because he was old they were surely 
reckoning without their host. 


CHAPTER V 


HOPWOOD 

W HILE the old man and the child were 
pledging their everlasting hatred to the 
Waits, Scott Burton, with puzzled frown, was 
slowly climbing the mountain road to their 
cabin. He did not know the location of old 
Jarred Morgan’s cabin, and probably would 
have avoided it if he had, for he wanted to think 
this feud business over before he talked to any 
of them. Ignorant of how close he was to 
them, he turned into the woods less than a 
quarter of a mile below them and sat down 
with his back against the trunk of a great, 
widespreading beech tree. He was out of 
sight of the road, and he had purposely chosen 
the spot in the deep woods to be free from 
interruption. 

So this was the simple little job which the 
Service had given him to complete before he 
went back to his old home in the southwest? 
32 


HOPWOOD 


Why did they always pick him out to unravel 
some mess? He had never had a job where 
he could really show what he could do. Al¬ 
ways there had been some complication, some¬ 
thing outside of the regular line of duty that 
had taken his whole time and attention. 
Never had he found himself in a position where 
he could devote himself to his technical work 
and show what he knew. Even when he had 
logged his own land he had found his opera¬ 
tions hindered by the bully of the country who 
had tried to ruin him. His first impulse now 
was to write to the Service that he did not care 
to mix up in this mess at all. If they wanted 
him to go back to his old post, all right; other¬ 
wise, he would resign. He had made enough 
to live on out of his own logging operations, 
and he could make more the same way. He 
did not have to worry over these miserable 
feuds. Two men had already lost their repu¬ 
tations on this job and been run out of the 
country and. . . . 

Right there Scott lost all interest in that 
line of thought. Was he going to let them 
run him out of the country? His jaw set at 
33 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


the mere thought of it, and he knew that he 
would never leave till he had been completely 
beaten or was carried out in a wooden box. 
He dropped all idea of giving up the job and 
settled down to look it squarely in the face. 

Just what was this problem anyway? The 
government owned a big tract of land here, 
and there was timber on it that was ready to 
be cut, and it was up to him as supervisor to 
sell it. It was located on both sides of the val¬ 
ley, part in Wait territory and part in Morgan. 
Two other men had already tried it, and had 
failed utterly before they had ever started be¬ 
cause they had become involved in this ever¬ 
lasting feud between the Waits and the Mor¬ 
gans. 

When he really thought about it, it did not 
seem to be such an impossible task. Why 
should he mix up in this feud at all? It looked 
as though old Foster Wait was to blame for 
starting it years ago, but it did not matter now 
who was originally to blame, they were both 
equally to blame for keeping it up all these 
years. He would put it up to them squarely 
that they had to forget the feud, and come 
34 


HOPWOOD 


together or he would have nothing to do with 
either of them. Just what could they have to 
do with it in any event? He did not think, 
from what he had seen of the country people 
there, that either family could scrape together 
enough money to buy the timber on a single 
acre. He did not see how they could influence 
the sale one way or the other, and he was not 
going to let them do it if they could. 

When Scott had come to that somewhat 
Irish decision he felt better. It seemed almost 
as if the problem had been solved and he began 
to look about him. His eyes had been fixed 
absently on the ground all the time and his first 
upward glance revealed a sight that sent a 
cold shiver up his back. 

A man was sitting on a log not six feet from 
him, and was staring at him with bright blue 
eyes. It was startling enough to find any one 
sitting so close to him when he had thought 
himself entirely alone, but it was really alarm¬ 
ing when the man had a gun in his hand and a 
large piece of sheet iron on top of his head. 
At first Scott thought that he must be dream¬ 
ing, and he blinked his eyes two or three times 

35 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


to try to dispel the illusion, but it would not 
dispel. 

This was really a man. He looked much as 
other men save for a queer, dreamy look in his 
eyes, and he was dressed like other men except 
for his strange head gear. Instead of a hat he 
was wearing a strange contraption of wood 
and iron. On the bottom of a sheet of heavy 
iron about eighteen inches long and a foot wide 
he had nailed four pieces of wood in the form 
of a square. This he was wearing on his head 
like a senior’s mortar board. 

All during Scott’s astonished examination, 
the newcomer sat staring at him without the 
slightest expression on his weather-beaten face. 
He was so still that he might have been a 
statue and his unwavering pose added to 
Scott’s feeling of his unreality. He finally, 
after several minutes of astonished silence, re¬ 
covered sufficiently from the spell to exclaim 
“Hello.” He said it in a rather startled tone. 
It did not sound in the least like a friendly 
greeting, but it seemed to be altogether satis¬ 
factory to his visitor. The man’s face relaxed, 
and a friendly smile lighted it up. Scott was 
36 


HOPWOOD 

in hopes that he would remove the iron hat, but 
he did not. 

“So you are the new supervisor/' the 
stranger remarked in a low, pleasing voice. 

“Yes,” Scott replied a little stiffly, for he 
had not entirely recovered from his astonish¬ 
ment, and could not keep his eyes off the iron 
hat, “I'm the new supervisor. And who may 
you be?” 

“I might be almost anybody,” the man 
smiled, “but I happen to be Hopwood.” 

“Well, I'm sure I don’t know where you 
came from, Mr. Hopwood. You just seemed 
to appear on that log as if by magic, but I am 
glad to know you, all the same.” 

“Not Mr. Hopwood,” the man said solemnly, 
“just Hopwood. Hopwood Wait.” 

Scott looked at him with a new interest. So 
this was one of the Waits, the first one he had 
seen, and he wondered if the iron hat were a 
part of the family armor. It might have pro¬ 
tected him from an airplane attack, but would 
have been of little use for anything else. He 
had understood that the Waits did not come 
over on this side of the valley. Could this man 
37 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


be scouting in enemy territory or had he come 
in hope of getting a pot shot at a Morgan? 
He decided to risk a question. 

“Aren’t you in dangerous territory here?” 

Hopwood shook his head slowly. “No, they 
all think I am crazy, but I have more sense 
than anybody else in the family. I can eat 
lunch with Jarred Morgan and supper with 
Foster Wait, and that’s more than anybody 
else can do,” he replied proudly. 

“Then you don’t believe in this family 
feud?” Scott inquired eagerly. 

Again Hopwood shook his head. “Why 
should I? They will all be killed if they keep 
it up. The cemetery is full of them now.” 

“Do you think that they would give it up 
if they had a good chance?” 

Hopwood nodded. 

“What makes you think so?” This man 
might be able to give him some useful infor¬ 
mation even if he was crazy. 

“Because they are scared,” Hopwood an¬ 
swered promptly. “Every one of them is 
scared except old Jarred and Vic. They don’t 
pay any attention to me and I hear them talk.” 

38 


HOPWOOD 


“Then why don't they give it up?” 

“Because they are more scared to quit than 
they are to go on. If they should quit, old 
Jarred would kill them all, both Morgans and 
Waits.” 

Scott thought for a moment. Old Jarred 
Morgan seemed to be the key to the situation 
if this man knew what he was talking about. 

“Where could I find you if I should need 
you some time?” Scott asked. He thought he 
could see how this man might be very useful 
to him. 

“Almost anywhere,” was Hopwood's unsat¬ 
isfactory answer. 

Scott looked thoughtfully off through the 
woods a moment wondering what other useful 
information he could get out of this man, and 
when he looked back the man was gone. 


CHAPTER VI 


SCOTT TALKS WITH THE AGENT 

T HE disappearance of Hopwood had been 
so silent and so unexpected that Scott 
hardly knew whether it had not been a dream 
after all. He sat still for a moment to see 
whether he would come back, but, when he did 
not, he arose leisurely, and began to glance 
cautiously about him. He did not want to 
search because he thought that Hopwood must 
be behind a tree somewhere waiting to have 
the laugh on him. After all what difference 
did it make what had become of Hopwood? 
Scott felt that he had learned all that he could 
get out of him just now, and he had made up 
his mind what he wanted to do. 

He glanced at his watch. It was a quarter 
of twelve, and he would be late for his dinner 
if he did not hurry. He was curious to know 
how Hopwood had disappeared so suddenly 
and where he had gone, but he struck out for 
40 


SCOTT TALKS WITH THE AGENT 


the road without looking to the right or the 
left. Just as he reached it he saw the man of 
the iron hat stroll leisurely around a bend a 
little way up the mountain, apparently uncon¬ 
scious that he had acted peculiarly, and with¬ 
out a backward glance. The sight of him re¬ 
minded Scott that he had not found out why 
this man wore his strange iron hat, and he 
made up his mind to ask some one the first 
chance he had. 

When Scott reached the hotel after again 
running the gauntlet of stares in the village 
there were no signs of a meal in the very near 
future. The women were talking in the 
kitchen, but there was no sign of any hurry 
in spite of the fact that it was already fifteen 
minutes after the time they had announced 
for dinner. He went to his room and found it 
just as he had left it. Either he was expected 
to make his own bed or the women did not 
make them till afternoon. He decided to wait 
and see what would happen. 

When the dinner bell finally rang, it was a 
quarter past one. Scott found himself alone 
with the station agent. The meal was about 
4i 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 

the worst he had ever seen. Great cubes of 
salt pork fat three inches square, boiled and 
transparent, that might have made an Eski¬ 
mo’s mouth water, but were impossible for the 
uninitiated. Corn bread as dry as powder, a 
sickly looking gravy, and some gluey rice. At 
first Scott thought that he could not eat any 
of it, but what was he going to do? This was 
probably what he would have to eat for sev¬ 
eral weeks. There was no place to look for 
anything better. With a desperate look around 
the table to make sure that he had not over¬ 
looked any possibilities, he resolutely helped 
himself to the rice and the corn bread and 
waded in. He could swallow these things if 
he had to, but he could not bring himself even 
to try the salt pork. 

He had been so disgusted with the meal that 
he had forgotten all about the station agent. 
Now he recalled that the gentleman had been 
rather offended at his actions in the morning, 
and that he had better try to make his peace 
with him now. 

“Mr. Roberts, you probably thought me very 
ungrateful this morning, but I knew absolutely 
42 


SCOTT TALKS WITH THE AGENT 


nothing of this feud here, and could not imag¬ 
ine what you meant. ,, 

The agent answered rather stiffly. “None 
of the government men who have been here 
seem to want to know anything about it, but 
they all learn something about it sooner or 
later.” 

“Well, I want to know all I can about it. 
Up the road this morning I met Mr. Sanders, 
and when he asked me that same question 
about buying at the stores I asked him to ex¬ 
plain. He told me all he could about it, and 
then I realized what you meant. I really ap¬ 
preciate your kindness very much, and want 
to thank }^ou for trying to warn me. I don’t 
believe there are many people around here who 
would have done it.” 

The agent was evidently pleased with the 
apology and melted immediately. “No, I 
reckon there ain’t,” he said rather proudly. 
“Old man Sanders and I are about the only 
ones. The others are all in it up to their 
necks.” 

“Now that I know about it, I am not going 
to get mixed up with either side. They will 
43 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


have to give up their feud and work together 
like other people if they want to get in the 
game.” 

“They will never do that as long as old 
Jarred lives,” the agent answered confidently. 

That familiar phrase reminded Scott of the 
strange man with the iron hat. “By the way,” 
he asked, “who is this man Hopwood?” 

“He’s Foster Wait’s nephew. Foster’s 
father is the man who started the feud, you 
know. He had an awful bad temper, and they 
tell me that, when Hopwood was a little kid, 
old Foster hit him in the head with his cane 
and he’s been crazy as a loon ever since. Did 
you meet him at Sanders’ place?” 

“No,” Scott replied, “I met him up in the 
woods.” 

“Thought you might have met him at San¬ 
ders’,” the agent said. “His mother was old 
Sanders’ daughter. What did you think of his 
hat?” 

“I was just going to ask you why he 
wears that thing,” Scott said with renewed 
curiosity. 

“He thinks it will keep the devil away.” The 
44 


SCOTT TALKS WITH THE AGENT 


agent was delighted with the opportunity to 
tell some one of the strange gossip of the 
country that he had collected in his ten years 
of residence. “You see when he grew up he 
saw that he was not like other people, and they 
had to give him some reason for it, so they 
told him there was a devil in him. He went 
right out and built that iron hat and has worn 
it ever since. Says he’s going to wear it till 
they give up the feud.” 

“Doesn’t wear it at night, does he?” Scott 
asked. It was ridiculous, but it was so pathetic 
that he hated to laugh at it. 

“'No,” the agent answered seriously, “he 
doesn’t wear it at night, but he sleeps on his 
back with that thing on his chest.” 

“He looked queer,” Scott said, “but he 
seemed to talk reasonably enough. He said 
just as you do that they will never drop the 
feud as long as old Jarred Morgan lives, but he 
says the others are all scared and would drop 
it if they could.” 

“Sometimes I think he isn’t as crazy as they 
make out. They talk about him and in front 
of him as though he couldn’t understand any- 
45 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


thing, but he can tell you every word that they 
have said for the past five years.” 

Scott thought for a minute. “Do you think 
it would be safe for me to make use of him 
or would that be considered as taking part 
with the Waits?” 

“No, that would not tie you up with the 
Waits. Everybody talks to him, even old 
Jarred Morgan. They do not seem to consider 
him as belonging to the family, somehow. But 
you don't want to be too sure about using him. 
If he happened to take a liking to you he will 
do anything for you, but if he did not like you 
this morning you'll probably never see him 
again.” 

“I don't know whether he liked me or not,” 
Scott said thoughtfully. “He appeared on a 
log in front of me so suddenly that I did not 
see where he came from, and he got away 
again in the same way.” 

“Oh, he moves like a shadow in the woods,” 
the agent exclaimed enthusiastically. “He has 
any Indian I have ever seen beaten three ways 
for woodcraft. He moves about so fast and 
so silently that a lot of folks around here think 
46 


SCOTT TALKS WITH THE AGENT 


he is a spirit” It was easy to see from the 
agent's manner that he was not altogether 
clear on that point himself. 

“Well,” Scott said, “I hope he likes me be¬ 
cause it looks as though I won't have very 
many friends around here.” 

“You sure will not,” the agent remarked 
with decision. “You can make friends with 
half the people easy enough, but sure as you 
do the other half will hate you. If you don't 
take up with either side, as you are planning 
on doing, likely as not they will all hate you.” 

Scott sat for a moment dreamy eyed, consid¬ 
ering this disagreeable dilemma. When he 
looked up Hopwood was standing in the door¬ 
way, calmly looking at him over the agent's 
head. For a moment Scott was too astonished 
to speak. He wondered if Hopwood had been 
outside listening, and he thought of what the 
agent had said about this strange man being 
a spirit. 

“Hello, Hopwood!” he exclaimed, and the 
agent almost jumped out of his chair. 

Hopwood smiled an answer. “Is that red¬ 
headed man who came on the train yesterday 
47 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


your boss?” he asked, as though they had been 
talking for some time. 

“Yes,” Scott admitted, “he is, in a way.” 

“Well, he's joined the Waits,” Hopwood re¬ 
marked. 

The announcement almost stunned Scott. 
He stared wildly at Hopwood for an instant 
and then at the agent. “What makes you think 
so?” he asked dully. 

There was no answer, and he found Hop- 
wood had disappeared as suddenly as he had 
come. 

The agent tiptoed to the door and looked 
cautiously up and down the porch. Hopwood 
was nowhere to be seen. He looked back at 
Scott and shook his head. “Gone completely. 
Well, whether he is man or devil, I reckon he is 
a friend of yours all right.” 

“I guess he is,” Scott replied with a sickly 
smile, “but it does not look as though my boss 
thought much of me.” 


CHAPTER VII 

SCOTT RECEIVES “AID” FROM HIS BOSS 


M R. ROBERTS went back to his office 
soon after HopwoocTs visit, and was evi¬ 
dently glad of the opportunity to get away. 
He had spoken derisively of those who thought 
that Hopwood was a spirit, but he had looked 
behind him nervously till he was well away 
from the house. 

Scott scarcely noticed that he had gone. He 
sat with his chin dropped dejectedly on his 
chest, and stared across the table with un¬ 
seeing eyes. If what Hopwood had said was 
true, his troubles there would be greatly in¬ 
creased even if his plans were not completely 
ruined. It seemed as though some evil genius 
had brought him to this place, and if he had 
he certainly must be laughing at the pickle his 
victim was in. 

Scott was so disappointed that he felt almost 
ready to cry. With considerable difficulty, 
49 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


and the help of old man Sanders and the sta¬ 
tion agent, he had succeeded in posting him¬ 
self fairly well on the ins and outs of this feud. 
After carefully considering the possibility of 
an alliance with one side or the other he had 
come to the conclusion that the only safe thing 
to do was to remain absolutely neutral. He 
felt confident that if he could keep away from 
any entangling alliance with either side, he 
could successfully carry on his work in spite of 
the feud and might even be able to get these 
old enemies to patch up their differences. He 
had still considered that a possibility even 
though every one said that the feud would 
never be dropped as long as old Jarred Morgan 
lived. 

And now his superior officer had taken sides 
with the Waits and spoiled everything. 

Scott determined to find Hopwood, learn 
where Mr. Reynolds was, and know the worst 
as soon as possible. One of them was right 
and the other wrong. They must at least get 
together and agree on a common policy. 

So Scott started out in search of Hopwood. 
He felt sure that he could tell him where to 
50 


RECEIVES “AID” FROM HIS BOSS 


find Mr. Reynolds. The iron hat was nowhere 
in sight, but Scott felt that he could not be 
very far away. Surely he would not have come 
to make such a statement as that and then 
disappear without waiting to give any explan¬ 
ation of it. Possibly he had gone to one of the 
stores. 

He had started down the village street to 
investigate when he noticed a motionless fig¬ 
ure sitting back of a pile of cordwood a little 
way back from the street. He instantly rec¬ 
ognized Hopwood. Was he hiding from him 
and would he run away? Scott approached 
him rather cautiously, but Hopwood watched 
him calmly and showed no sign of retreating. 
He rather appeared to be waiting for him. 

“Thanks for the warning you gave me,” 
Scott said as soon as he was near enough to 
him. 

“I thought that you would be looking for 
me,” Hopwood replied with his usual disre¬ 
gard of preliminaries. 

“What made you think that I would find 
you in this out-of-the-way place?” Scott 
laughed. “Why didn’t you stay at the hotel? 
5i 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


I would have been glad to have had a visit 
from you.” 

“The more people see me with you the less 
I’ll hear,” Hopwood answered cunningly. 

Scott started at the flash of wisdom from a 
half-wit. “I guess you are right,” he replied 
earnestly. “Do you think we are safe here?” 

“Oh, yes,” Hopwood replied confidently. 
“No one can see us here except from that one 
place, and no one else will go along that street 
for half an hour.” 

Scott did not waste any time trying to find 
out how Hopwood knew that. There was 
something else that he was anxious to know. 
“Then maybe you can tell me, Hopwood, what 
makes you think Mr. Reynolds has joined the 
Waits?” 

“He’s been up at the Waits’ nearly all day, 
and has just about promised them that you will 
give them the logging contract.” 

“How do you know he did?” Scott asked in¬ 
credulously. “You were with me part of the 
morning, and went up the other mountain 
when you left me,” he protested. 

Hopwood only smiled. 

52 


RECEIVES “AID” FROM HIS BOSS 


‘‘Where is he now?” Scott continued. He 
could not believe that Hopwood knew what he 
was talking about. Maybe he was mistaken. 
He hoped so. 

“He is on his way down the mountain with 
Foster Wait,” Hopwood replied promptly. 
“He'll be down here at the store in less than 
half an hour,” he added, as though he had 
noticed the doubt in Scott's face. 

“Then I guess I'll wait here till he comes,” 
Scott said. “I don't want to be seen now 
traipsing around the country with Foster 
Wait. 

“He’ll have some job to make me give a 
logging contract to either of those gangs,” 
Scott muttered defiantly. Then, after a min¬ 
ute's silence, “Do you think that either the 
Morgans or the Waits could carry out a log¬ 
ging contract if they did get it, Hopwood? 
Have they the money to do it?” 

But there was no answer. Hopwood had 
disappeared again in his usual silent and mys¬ 
terious fashion. Scott knew better now than 
to waste his time looking for him. He fell to 
brooding over this phase of the problem, and 
53 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


when he looked at his watch it was already ten 
minutes after the time which Hopwood had 
predicted for Mr. Reynolds’ arrival. Scott 
jumped to his feet and hurried out into the 
open. He was delighted to see Mr. Reynolds 
coming up the street alone and walked down 
to meet him. 

Mr. Reynolds was a rather effeminate-look¬ 
ing man, over neatly dressed in the very latest 
cut of riding suit. He affected a rather bored 
manner. He waved an indolent greeting to 
Scott. 

“Hello, there, Burton! I sure am glad to 
see you. I thought I was going to have to eat 
another meal in this beastly hole. Now I can 
probably finish up with you in time to catch 
the afternoon train.” 

Scott wished that he had caught the train 
the day before but he did not dare to say so. 
Instead he said, “Think how long I shall have 
to eat here. Better stay awhile. Misery loves 
company, you know.” 

“Well, I hope you get all the company you 
want, but it sure will not be mine if I can help 
it.” 


54 


RECEIVES “AID” FROM HIS BOSS 


“By the way,” Scott asked suddenly, “where 
did you get that cigarette?” 

“Pardon me,” Mr. Reynolds exclaimed, as 
he fumbled apologetically in his pocket for the 
package, “but I was under the impression that 
you never smoked.” 

“I don’t,” Scott replied. “I was only won¬ 
dering where you bought them.” 

“Oh, here at the store. They carry them, 
but they are a pretty bum brand.” 

“Which store?” Scott insisted. 

“The one on the left there. Hadn’t noticed 
there were two. What’s the big idea? You 
rooting for one of them?” 

Scott knew that it would be useless to argue 
with this man. He evidently had no concep¬ 
tion of the situation in the village and Scott 
did not think it worth while to try to explain. 
“No,” he replied, “I was just wondering which 
one I ought to deal with,” which was true 
enough. 

“Well, if everything they sell is as rotten as 
their cigarettes you’d better try the other one. 
But come on up to the hotel so that I can go 
over things with you in time to catch that train. 
55 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


I think that I have things lined up here for 
you in pretty good shape.” 

“How is that?” Scott asked. In spite of the 
harm this man had done him he could not help 
smiling at his unbounded conceit. 

“Oh, I had a long talk with Foster Wait 
this afternoon, and fixed it up with him so that 
the Waits will take over the logging contract. 
There is a big family of them and the labor 
problem will be settled. No use in scouring 
the country the way those other fellows did 
when it can be handled so easily locally.” 

“Didn’t sign them up, did you?” Scott asked 
the question as carelessly as he could, but he 
really waited breathlessly for the answer. 

“No,” Mr. Reynolds answered pompously, 
“I could not very well go into all those details 
because I did not have the necessary forms 
with me. I only smoothed the way for you 
a little. Now that I have talked to them it 
will be no trick at all for you to get them to 
sign up and arrange all the details.” 

“And,” Scott thought, “the details would 
have to include the hiring of an undertaker to 
sweep up the remains.” But to Mr. Reynolds 

56 


RECEIVES “AID” FROM HIS BOSS 


he said nothing. The more he let this man 
talk the more certain he would be of getting 
rid of him on the afternoon train, and that was 
Scott’s one ambition now—to get rid of this 
man at the earliest possible moment. 

They walked on up to the hotel and when 
they came out two hours later Scott was more 
than ever anxious to see him go. If this man 
had had anything to do with the business when 
the two previous supervisors had been run out 
of the country he could understand perfectly 
well how it happened. Scott had listened at¬ 
tentively and talked hardly at all. 

As they approached the stores Scott saw a 
good-sized delegation assembled on the porch 
of each. The Waits looked smilingly elated. 
The Morgans glared angrily from across the 
way. 

“Come on up and I’ll introduce you to these 
people now if I have the time.” 

Scott was determined to avoid this but he 
did now know how to do it. If he refused, Mr. 
Reynolds would undoubtedly start an argu¬ 
ment which the spectators could not help but 
understand. Fortunately the train was on 
57 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


time, something which rarely happened, and 
it whistled just in the nick of time. 

As the train pulled out of the station, Scott 
watched it with a feeling of profound relief, 
but at the same time he half wished that he 
was on it. He was rid of Mr. Reynolds, but 
would he ever be able to get out of the mess 
into which this man had drawn him? 


CHAPTER VIII 
SCOTT LOSES HIS NEUTRALITY 


\yl7HEN the train had disappeared Scott 
* * turned to find the station agent close 
behind him waiting for an opportunity to 
speak. 

“I reckon Hopwood was right,” he said with 
his slow drawl. 

“What makes you think so?” Scott asked, 
for he knew that Mr. Reynolds had not told 
him. 

“Three of the Waits have already told me 
that they are going to get the logging con¬ 
tract,” he replied. 

“Oh, they did, did they?” he exclaimed in¬ 
dignantly. Either Mr. Reynolds must have 
talked to a gathering of the whole clan or the 
news had spread like wild fire over the face 
of the mountain. “Well, they haven’t got it 
yet,” he snapped. “I guess I’ll have something 
to say about who gets that logging contract.” 
59 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


“I asked them if you had told them and they 
said no, but your boss had, and you would have 
to do as he said.” 

Scott's teeth came together with a vicious 
snap. “They'll see whether I have to or not.” 
He turned abruptly and walked across the 
tracks toward the Wait country. “No pair of 
whipcord riding breeches is going to tell me 
where to let a logging contract,” he muttered 
angrily to himself. 

He did not know exactly why he had come 
in that direction. Possibly it was his natural 
tendency to go straight for his enemy. He did 
not even realize where he was going; he only 
realized that he was mad clear through and 
that he had better walk some of it off before 
he talked to anybody. 

The forest came close down to the edge of 
the valley on this side and the road was arched 
over with the beautiful hardwood trees. Scott 
would have marveled at their size and beauty 
if he had not been too angry to notice them. 
The quiet solitude of the steep mountain road 
was well fitted to smooth a man's ruffled tem¬ 
per and make him forget his troubles. Every- 
60 


SCOTT LOSES HIS NEUTRALITY 


where the gray squirrels were chasing each 
other around the trees in a never ending game 
of tag, and the birds were singing all over the 
woods. 

Before Scott had gone very far he met two 
men riding down the mountain on horseback. 
They wore the regular uniform of that section, 
rough homespun trousers and a black sateen 
shirt, and carried long muzzle-loading rifles 
balanced across their saddle bows. They both 
grinned condescendingly at Scott and gave him 
a careless, “Howdy.” 

He did not think it strange that he should 
meet two men, but when he met two more a 
little farther up and they greeted him in the 
same way he began to comprehend. These 
were the triumphant Waits on their way to 
town to celebrate their victory, and they were 
all laughing at him, laughing because they had 
overreached him and made terms with the boss 
that he would have to accept. 

The thought maddened him, and by the time 
he had passed eight more he was so angry that 
he could hardly see the big fellow who brought 
up the rear of the last group of four. It would 
61 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 

never do to start a row with them now before 
he was really ready, and yet it was all he could 
do to hide his fury and return their greetings 
casually. 

The big fellow who had just passed turned 
in his saddle and looked at him inquiringly. 
“Weren’t looking for me, were you, sonny?” 
he called insolently in a rather thick voice. 

Scott’s blood boiled at the tone and wording 
of the question. He did not dare look at the 
man and it almost choked him to answer 
calmly, “Not to-day.” 

“Well, to-morrow will do,” the man called 
insolently. “You can find me home most any 
day.” And the others laughed at the retort. 

Scott saw red for a minute and half turned, 
but he caught himself in time. He would not 
make much headway in handling this timber 
sale if he began with a fight in the public road 
on a somewhat doubtful pretext. If he did 
fight he ought to have a little better cause than 
that. 

He did not meet any more of the offensive 
Waits and was beginning to cool off a little 
so that he could think calmly. Suddenly he 
62 


SCOTT LOSES HIS NEUTRALITY 


stopped with a jerk and turned his startled 
gaze down the road in the direction all the 
bands had been traveling. What would be the 
outcome of this meeting in the village? He 
had met twelve men on the road and he had 
noticed eight more at the store when he came 
by. They were all armed and most likely 
there would be much drinking. Would they 
take this opportunity to wipe out the remnant 
of the Morgans? 

He had never seen old Jarred Morgan nor 
had he ever spoken to any of the family, but 
right now his sympathy was with them. The 
picture which old man Sanders had drawn of 
that lonely old man and a slip of a girl holding 
the Morgan fort almost alone appealed to him. 
But what could they do against a gang of 
twenty? No matter how brave they were, they 
would be helpless. 

Scott’s sense of fair play sent his fighting 
blood bounding through his veins. He turned 
resolutely and hurried down the mountain. He 
thought that he might be able to prevent that 
crime. He would help to protect that plucky 
pair if he possibly could, and he would not care 

63 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


what anybody thought about it. He did not 
admit it to himself, but probably the greatest 
incentive was the opportunity to fight these 
insolent Waits. He hurried on without a 
thought of the possible effects it might have on 
his plans. Every minute he half expected to 
hear the shot which would announce the be¬ 
ginning of the fight. 

When he came out of the forest at the foot 
of the mountain, he was relieved to see that 
everything looked peaceful in the village. The 
station agent saw him coming and lounged out 
to the end of the platform to meet him. 

“Well, they are all in town to celebrate,” 
he drawled. 

“I guess they are, judging from the proces¬ 
sion I met coming down the mountain,” Scott 
growled bitterly. “Do you think there will be 
any trouble ?” 

The agent looked at him curiously. “Oh, I 
don’t believe they will bother you any now. 
They think that you are their friend.” 

Scott glared at the man indignantly. “I am 
not talking about myself. Do you suppose I 
care what that gang thinks of me? But it oc- 

64 


SCOTT LOSES HIS NEUTRALITY 


curred to me that they might take this oppor- 
unity to catch the Morgans unprepared and 
clean up what is left of them.” 

“Oh, you mean that kind of trouble?” and 
the agent seemed greatly relieved to find it 
out. “There won't be any fight unless old 
Jarred comes to town.” 

“There will not be any at all if I can prevent 
it,” Scott replied resolutely. “If there is any 
fight it will be a fair one and not a murder 
of one old man by a gang like that. I wish I 
could find Hopwood. You have not seen him, 
have you?” 

The agent looked cautiously behind him and 
shook his head. “No, I haven't seen him since 
noon, but that is no reason why he may not 
be sitting right here somewhere staring at us.” 

Scott turned away. “Well, maybe I'll run on 
to him. He seems to turn up somehow when 
he is wanted.” 

He dreaded passing that crowd at the store 
and yet he would not have gone home any 
other way this afternoon for a hundred dol¬ 
lars. There would almost certainly be some 
impudent remarks and Scott was almost afraid 

65 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


to trust himself, but he made up his mind that 
he would not fight with them no matter what 
happened till he had tried to persuade them to 
drop the feud. 

Purposely he kept out of sight behind some 
trees till he was not more than fifty yards from 
the store. Then bracing himself for the com¬ 
ing trial he walked casually out of the shadow. 
His eye took in the situation at a glance, but 
he could not understand it. 

Two lonely men sat silent and sullen on the 
porch of the Morgan store. At least twenty 
crowded the porch of the store across the 
street, laughing and gibing at a burly giant 
who was dragging a young girl across the 
street by the hair. The girl’s head was bent 
down so that Scott could not see her face, but 
he could imagine her expression. She was not 
uttering a sound, but she was fighting with 
the fury of a wildcat. 

Scott’s blood boiled at the sight of a man 
mistreating a girl in this way. Moreover, he 
recognized the man as the big fellow who had 
spoken to him so insolently up on the moun¬ 
tain. Even before he realized what he was 
66 


SCOTT LOSES HIS NEUTRALITY 


doing he had covered the short distance and 
grabbed the man by the arm. He had been a 
boxer all his life and had won the heavyweight 
championship at college. He was calm now, as 
calm as he had ever been when he stepped into 
the ring. This man was almost twice his size, 
but he did not even notice it. 

“Let go of that girl/' Scott commanded, and 
as he spoke he let go of the man’s arm. He had 
grabbed it only to attract the man’s attention. 
He knew that he could not hold this man in 
any such way and he was too good a fighter to 
hold on and be jerked off his balance. The 
steely ring in his voice was enough to hold 
any one’s attention now. 

The man turned upon him furiously, but 
he did not let go of the girl. Evidently he had 
expected to see a Morgan, for when his eyes 
fell on Scott his mouth dropped open for a 
moment and he stared blankly. 

“Did you hear what I said?” Scott insisted 
with suppressed fury. 

A cunning leer came over the man’s sodden 
face. The spectators at the two stores listened 
breathlessly. 


6 7 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


“Quick work to get sweet on her so soon. 
Get out of the way, sonny, and go get the 
papers ready for that logging contract. ,, 

Quick as a flash Scott caught the big fellow 
a tremendous blow on the jaw with the flat of 
his hand. If the man had been sober he would 
have hit him with his fist, but he did not want 
to slug him when he was in that helpless con¬ 
dition, much as he deserved it. Even as it was, 
the slap was enough. The big man let go of 
the girl, stumbled, lost his balance and sprawled 
his length on the ground, where he lay groping 
helplessly for his gun and muttering curses. 

The girl shook her long hair from her face 
and cast a look of furious hatred at the fallen 
foe. Her chest was heaving from the desper¬ 
ate, but futile, struggle. Turning slowly she 
swept a contemptuous glance over the specta¬ 
tors on both porches. “Cowards!” she snapped 
with all the concentrated contempt she could 
muster. She turned and walked slowly down 
the street with all the dignity of a queen. 

Much to Scott’s astonishment not a man had 
moved a hand to interfere with him. He 
looked them over slowly to see if they were 
68 


SCOTT LOSES HIS NEUTRALITY 


going to mob him, but nobody moved or spoke. 
When he had stood there long enough to avoid 
any appearance of running away, he cast a 
curious glance at the retreating figure of the 
girl who had so completely ignored her res¬ 
cuer, and walked slowly away toward the 
hotel, trying to figure out what it could all 
mean. 

As he turned the corner of the hotel he 
almost laughed aloud. He was thinking what 
the Waits must think of his friendship now. 


CHAPTER IX 


SCOTT MAKES ANOTHER RESCUE 

W HEN Scott entered the hotel he was still 
thinking what it could all mean. Why 
were the men of both factions quietly looking 
on while a big burly drunkard dragged a child 
around the street by the hair? If the girl was 
a Morgan why had the Morgans let such an 
act go unchallenged? If she was a Wait why 
had not the rest of the gang protected her? He 
started. Perhaps it was the man's own child. 
No matter. No man had a right to drag his 
own child around by the hair. Well, when the 
station agent came to supper he could prob¬ 
ably explain things. 

But the station agent did not come to supper 
and Scott ate the atrocious food in lonely state 
still trying to solve this mystery. In any event 
he had shown the Waits just how much they 
could count on his friendship and that was 
worth something. It was also some satisfac- 
70 


SCOTT MAKES ANOTHER RESCUE 


tion to know that they were probably as much 
troubled as he was. 

Alone in his room he pondered the problem 
for an hour without coming any nearer to a 
solution. Finally the suspense became unbear¬ 
able. He determined to go to old man Sanders 
and see if he could offer any explanation. It 
was growing dusk when he went out and ob¬ 
jects seemed a little indistinct in the distance. 
He glanced toward the place where Hopwood 
had been waiting for him in the afternoon, but 
there was no trace of him now. 

Both stores apparently were deserted. Scott 
had not seen a soul when he turned into the 
road which led up to Sanders' little cabin. He 
thought that he had never known the woods to 
be so silent. It seemed as though every living 
thing must have left the country. But there 
was a light in Sanders' cabin. The full moon 
peeped at him over the trees behind the house. 
He knocked on the door and heard the old man 
shuffling across the floor to open it. 

“Good evening,” Scott said as the door 
swung wide. “You see I have come back to 
you for advice pretty quick.” 

7i 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


"Come in, come in,” the old man said 
cordially. "Glad to see you.” He motioned 
Scott to one of the old-fashioned chairs. When 
they were comfortably seated he spoke again. 

"You said you came here for advice. Let me 
give you a little before I forget it. It happens 
to be perfectly safe for any one to knock on my 
door at any time of the day or night, but don't 
try it anywhere else. You would probably 
find yourself looking down the barrel of a gun 
if the dogs did not chew you up first. It is the 
custom in this country to stand outside the gate 
and shout.” 

"Thanks,” Scott replied gratefully. "I am 
very anxious to learn the customs of this coun¬ 
try. There seem to be some customs here I do 
not understand. That is what brought me up 
here to-night. What does it mean when a big 
bully of a man hauls a girl around the street 
by the hair while twenty others look on and 
do nothing?” 

The old man straightened up in his chair. 
"What's all this?” he asked sharply. 

Scott explained as fully as he could and the 
old man listened breathlessly to every word. 
72 


SCOTT MAKES ANOTHER RESCUE 


When Scott had finished his story the old 
fellow sank back in his chair with wrinkled 
brow. 

“So that was how it happened/’ he muttered 
to himself. “The girl has more sense than I 
thought she had.” Then he spoke aloud to 
Scott. “I heard a little something of this but I 
did not know that you had anything to do with 
it. It’s a wonder to me that you are here to 
tell it.” 

Scott misunderstood him. “I admit it was 
a little hasty,” he replied with dignity, “but I 
am not ashamed of it.” 

The old man laughed aloud. “No, no, you 
have nothing to be ashamed of. I am only sur¬ 
prised that Foster has not killed you before 
this. Be on your guard, for he will certainly 
try it.” 

“Tell me about it,” Scott said. “What was 
going on? I could not make head or tail of it.” 

Mr. Sanders thought for a moment. “Must 
have seemed queer to you. Would to anybody. 
You see Foster Wait, he was the big fellow, 
was drunk as he usually is when he has any 
excuse for it at all. He happened to see Vic 
73 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


Morgan there in the village and could not help 
poking some fun at her about the logging con¬ 
tract. They all love to tease her just to see her 
spit fire. She flew into a tantrum just as she 
always does, ran out to the middle of the street, 
which is the dividing line between Morgan and 
Wait territory, and told him what she thought 
of him and the whole Wait tribe. She said her¬ 
self that she cursed Foster pretty bad. 

“You see she felt safe because the Waits 
never come past the middle of the street. But, 
as I said, Foster was drunk and he reached 
over the line and grabbed her. Probably just 
wanted to spank the kid for a joke. Vic could 
not see the joke and bit his thumb. Hurt him 
pretty bad, I reckon, and made him mad. He 
has a terrible temper like his father. He 
grabbed her by the hair for a safe hold and then 
you came along/’ 

“But how could those men there at the 
Morgan store see a Wait treat a member of 
their family in any such way as that?” Scott 
protested. 

“Because Jim don’t believe in keeping up the 
feud, and it makes him mad every time Vic 
74 


SCOTT MAKES ANOTHER RESCUE 


stirs things up that way. Probably thought it 
served her right.” 

“So that child is Vic. And she is the only 
supporter old Jarred has. Who is she, any¬ 
way?” Scott asked. 

“She is the daughter of Jim Morgan there at 
the store, but she spends most of her time up 
on the mountain with her grandfather. She 
and the old man are great chums.” 

“Just one more question,” Scott said, “or 
rather two more and then I’ll let you go to bed. 
Why didn’t any of the Waits interfere when I 
knocked their leader down? I did not know 
who he was or I might have been scared.” 

“Because they don’t like him. He is a regu¬ 
lar bully, and they were probably glad to see 
somebody stand up to him. Besides, they are 
expecting a good deal from you.” 

Scott ignored the last remark. “And my 
last question. How did you find out about it 
so quickly?” 

The old man hesitated an instant. “That is 
the part that puzzled me. Vic stopped in here 
and told me about it herself. That would not 
have surprised me because she usually tells me 
75 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


everything, but she asked me not to let her 
grandfather hear about it if I could help it. 
That is what astonished me. Ordinarily she 
would have gone to her grandfather on the run 
and wanted him to kill the whole tribe. He’ll 
try to do it too if he ever hears about this and 
his own tribe, too, for letting it happen. I think 
Vic must have realized that. Didn’t know the 
kid had so much judgment. She did not say 
anything about your rescuing her, either,” he 
mused. 

Scott was thoughtful a minute. “Well, I 
certainly appreciate your help, Mr. Sanders. 
I think I understand it a little better now, but,” 
he added slowly, “I don’t think I shall ever 
understand how a father could sit still and see 
a drunken man treat his daughter like that.” 
And he arose to take his leave. 

“Old Jarred wouldn’t understand it, either,” 
Mr. Sanders said, as he rose to show his guest 
to the door. “I wish you would help me to keep 
him from finding it out. The kid does not want 
him to know, and I like her.” 

“So do I,” Scott replied. “She fought like a 
wildcat. I admire nerve in anybody. I admire 
76 


SCOTT MAKES ANOTHER RESCUE 


the old man, too, for holding out alone against 
that big gang, and I am going to protect him 
all I can.” 

He was out on the porch now, and the old 
man was standing in the doorway. “Good 
night, and thank you again.” 

“Good night, and be careful,” the old man 
warned him. “Foster Wait is a dangerous man 
and he’ll never be satisfied till he gets his re¬ 
venge for this insult. He won’t stop at any¬ 
thing and you must be on your guard all the 
time.” 

“I’ll try to watch him,” Scott replied simply. 

“Do that,” the old man called. “I’ve taken 
a fancy to you and I don’t want to see you shot 
for nothing.” 

The door closed before Scott could reply and 
left him alone in the moonlight. He felt his 
loneliness then in that unfriendly country and 
was grateful to the old man for his help and 
his friendship. With a sigh he turned down 
the mountain road pondering on the strange 
story he had heard. He could see how the news 
of this encounter might mean the disruption of 
the whole Morgan faction if it were ever re- 
77 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


vealed to old Jarred, and the girl must have 
seen it too. 

He was walking along slowly in this 
thoughtful mood when he was startled by the 
sight of an old white horse standing in a patch 
of moonlight in the middle of the road. He 
wore a bridle but no saddle, and his head was 
hanging low as though he were exhausted from 
hard riding. 

Scott's mind flashed to the old man's warn¬ 
ing against Foster Wait and he jumped behind 
a point in the bank beside the road. He was 
not a coward but he did not mean to be shot 
down by a madman without a struggle. He 
peeped cautiously through the bushes. At first 
he could see nothing, but as his eyes became 
more accustomed to the uncertain light he 
thought he recognized the body of a person 
lying under the horse's muzzle. He watched 
it carefully for a moment. There was no sign 
of motion. Surely any one lying in wait for 
him would not have chosen such a peculiar 
form of strategy. He threw his caution to the 
winds and stepped out into the road. 

The old horse raised his head and nickered. 

78 


SCOTT MAKES ANOTHER RESCUE 


The raising of the horse’s head let the moon¬ 
light fall on the figure in the road and Scott 
clearly recognized it as a woman. He ran for¬ 
ward and there was Vic Morgan lying uncon¬ 
scious in the road. A small bundle of clothes 
lay beside her. Evidently she had fallen from 
the horse, but Scott could not tell how it hap¬ 
pened. The faithful old horse was standing 
guard over her unconscious form; it would 
hardly have been his fault. 

Scott felt her pulse. She wasn’t dead. One 
leg was twisted under her in an unnatural posi¬ 
tion. He straightened it out and the bone did 
not seem to be broken. He was uncertain 
whether to take her back to Sanders’ cabin or 
home to her father. It was not much farther 
to the village and he decided to take her there. 
He tied the bundle of clothes on his belt and 
led the horse over to the bank where he could 
get on. 

When he started to pick the girl up she 
groaned and moved uneasily. He gathered the 
slight form in his arms and carried her over to 
the bank. Just as he slipped on to the back of 
the docile old horse with his clumsy burden 
79 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


the girl opened her eyes. She looked at him 
sleepily at first, but as consciousness came to 
her she started up with a violent jerk and 
stared at him wildly. She evidently did not 
realize what had happened or just where she 
was. 

“Let go of me,” she commanded sternly, 
and before Scott realized what she was doing 
she had boxed his ears till they rang. 

He held the wildly struggling little figure 
as best he could and tried to explain. “Listen, 
I found you unconscious in the road and I’m 
only trying to take you home.” 

“Don’t you dare hold me,” she snapped 
angrily, and redoubled her struggles. “I don’t 
want you to take me home. I’d rather die here 
than have you touch me.” 

Scott was so taken back and so indignant 
that he felt like dropping her in the road and 
leaving her, but he could not do that. He 
gritted his teeth and held her the more firmly. 
“Well, I am going to take you home, young 
lady, whether you like it or not, so you might 
as well stop struggling. You can go back in 
the road and die afterwards if you want to.” 
80 


SCOTT MAKES ANOTHER RESCUE 


After an even more violent struggle than be¬ 
fore the child’s form suddenly collapsed, and 
she began to cry. This worried Scott far more 
than her struggles. 

“Don’t cry,” he begged her. “Where are you 
hurt and how did it happen?” 

For a while she was silent save for her 
sobbing and when she spoke it was not to 
answer his question. “If you’ve got to take 
me somewhere,” she said in an uncertain voice, 
“take me to grandpa.” 

Scott stopped the horse and looked at her 
doubtfully. “Why?” he asked. 

“Because I ran away from home and never 
want to see my father again,” she retorted de¬ 
fiantly. “And it’s none of your business,” she 
added promptly. 

Scott hesitated but he remembered what Mr. 
Sanders had said about her spending most of 
her time with her grandfather, and after the 
events of the afternoon he did not blame her 
for wanting to run away from her father. 
“Where does your grandfather live?” he asked. 

“Up the mountain,” she replied. 

Scott turned the old horse around and he 
81 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


plodded slowly upward. The light was al¬ 
ready out when they passed Mr. Sanders’ 
cabin and all was still. The girl did not deign 
to speak and Scott maintained a dignified 
silence. They had traveled almost a mile when 
the girl spoke suddenly. 

“If you say anything to granddad about that 
fight this afternoon, I’ll kill you.” 

Scott had already promised Mr. Sanders not 
to tell but there was something he wanted to 
know. “How were you hurt this evening?” he 
asked again. 

“None of your business,” the child snapped. 

“Then it may not be my business to keep 
your secret,” he retorted. 

She was silent for a moment as though think¬ 
ing it over. “The horse shied at a hound on 
the bank and I fell off,” she replied reluctantly. 

“How did it hurt you?” Scott insisted. 

Again there was a pause as though she was 
struggling with herself. “I have a knot on my 
head and my leg hurts,” she answered grudg- 
ingly. 

Scott had found out what he wanted to know. 
“I promise not to tell,” he said. 

82 


SCOTT MAKES ANOTHER RESCUE 

She did not thank him. A hound barked on 
the left-hand side of the road. The horse 
stopped. She called to the hound and he 
stopped barking instantly. 

“Let me down from here, ,, she commanded. 

Scott could see no reason for holding her 
longer. He balanced her on the horse’s with¬ 
ers and slipped to the ground. He reached up 
to help her. She tried to avoid him but he 
caught her and it was well that he did, for 
when her foot touched the ground she uttered 
a sharp gasp and sank limply. He thought for 
a second that she had fainted. 

“Call granddad,” she commanded in a voice 
pinched with pain. 

“Hello, there,” Scott called. 

There was a noise as of some one cautiously 
opening a door. 

“Grandpa,” the child called weakly. 

The door swung wide and the old man strode 
hurriedly across the yard. Scott was about to 
meet old Jarred Morgan. 


CHAPTER X 


SCOTT MEETS JARRED 

S COTT let the girl sit on the ground with 
her back against his knees and watched 
the famous old man coming to protect his own. 
He presented a striking figure striding along 
through the moonlight with hurried dignity. 
His tall, gaunt form was as erect as that of a 
man of twenty, and his step as springy. His 
ever present rifle hung comfortably across the 
hollow of his arm. He cast one keen glance of 
suspicion at Scott and knelt beside the girl. 
“What is it, Vic?” he asked tenderly. 

“I fell off old Dan,” she confessed sheep¬ 
ishly. 

“Are you hurt?” he insisted anxiously. 

“I have a knot on my head, and I twisted my 
leg,” she said. 

“How under the sun did you come to fall off 
old Dan?” her grandfather asked, as he laid 
down his long rifle and gathered her tenderly 
84 


SCOTT MEETS JARRED 

in his arms. Scott stepped back a pace or two 
out of earshot. 

“I was sitting- on him sideways and he shied 
at a hound on top of the bank down below 
Sanders'.” 

“And this gentleman ?” he asked, looking 
Scott squarely in the eye. 

“He found me in the road and brought me 
home,” she replied shortly. 

The old man straightened up with his burden 
and bowed solemnly to Scott. “I thank you, 
sir.” 

“I certainly am glad to have been of service 
to you,” Scott replied cordially. “I hope to 
have the pleasure of calling on you in a day or 
so if I may, so I will not intrude on you any 
longer at present.” 

Jarred frankly looked him over from head to 
foot. “If you will be so kind as to wait till I 
have taken the girl in the house I would like to 
speak to you for a moment.” 

“Certainly,” Scott answered politely. He 
liked the old man's frank, straightforward 
gaze, but it did not seem to him that steady 
eye looked on him with much favor. Perhaps 

85 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


he was no more grateful than his grand¬ 
daughter. In less than five minutes he came 
out again to join Scott. He came straight to 
the point. 

“Sir, I am sorry that I could not invite you 
in, and I regret that I have to appear discour¬ 
teous to a man who has rendered me the service 
you have. ,, Scott listened in silent astonish¬ 
ment and the old man continued. “I owe you 
a debt which I can never repay for the kindness 
you have shown my grandchild, but any man 
who aids my enemies can never be more to me 
than a creditor, as much as I would like to have 
it otherwise.” 

Scott was astonished at the old man’s courtly 
manner and fine English. He did not learn 
till later that many of these mountaineers were 
descendants of the old Huguenot families who 
were driven out of France and had retained a 
wonderful purity of speech. He answered as 
earnestly as he could. 

“I do not know what you mean, Mr. Morgan, 
unless you refer to the rumor that I am going 
to let the logging contract to the Waits.” 

“You call it a rumor,” Jarred replied a little 

86 


SCOTT MEETS JARRED 

doubtfully. "It was reported to me as a fact, 
apparently a very widely known fact,” he added 
bitterly. 

"I assure you that it is nothing more than a 
rumor and a false rumor at that. I have not 
spoken more than half a dozen words to a Wait 
since I came here.” 

"That may all be true enough but did not 
your superior officer make the promise for 
you?” Jarred asked with a slight sneer. 

The sneer angered Scott but he knew that it 
was justified under the circumstances. 

"I, too, Mr. Morgan, have heard that Mr. 
Reynolds very rashly made some informal 
promises to the Waits in regard to that con¬ 
tract. All I can say is that he did it without 
conferring with me. I am entirely responsible 
for letting that contract and I do not feel my¬ 
self in any way bound by what he may have 
said. I can assure you that there will be no 
contract let to either the Waits or the Morgans 
unless they will agree to forget their feud and 
take the contract together.” 

Old Jarred looked him squarely in the eye 
for a minute before he replied. Then he held 

87 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


out his hand. “I beg your pardon,” he said 
with dignity. “You must charge my discour¬ 
tesy to a mistake. I appreciate your frankness 
and I want to be equally frank. Under those 
conditions there will be no logging contract 
let here. Won’t you come in, sir?” 

Scott had grasped the proffered hand 
eagerly. “Thank you, sir. I will not come in 
now because it is late and you will be busy with 
the little girl, but I would like to come up and 
talk things over with you to-morrow.” 

“We’ll be glad to see you any time,” Jarred 
answered cordially. 

“Good night, sir. I hope the little girl’s in 
juries are not serious.” 

“She’ll be all right to-morrow, I think. And 
thank you again for helping her. Good night, 
sir.” 

Scott turned down the mountain and left the 
old man standing in the moonlight looking 
after him. He liked old Jarred; he was a man 
and a gentleman. He did not wonder that he 
held the Waits at bay almost unaided. One 
man like that could overawe a whole tribe of 
cowards such as the Waits appeared to be. 

88 


SCOTT MEETS JARRED 

And when Scott paused outside the hotel for 
a moment before going in, he glanced admir¬ 
ingly up at the silvered mountainside where 
that staunch old man was nursing his hate with 
such undaunted courage. 


CHAPTER XI 
A VISIT TO JARRED’S CABIN 


FTER breakfast the next morning Scott 



^ started back up the mountain. It was a 
beautiful morning. A light haze still lay like a 
blanket over the valley but the mountain ridges 
glistened in the sunshine. The woods seemed 
alive with birds everywhere he looked and 
many of them were new to him. It was the 
kind of morning that made a man feel as 
though he would never get tired, and Scott 
walked with a light step. The gloom of the 
night before had left him and everything 
seemed as bright as the mountain tops. He 
felt as though everything must come out all 


right. 


As he passed the Sanders’ cabin the old man 
was sweeping oil his little front porch. “Morn¬ 
ing,” he called cheerfully, “going up to beard 
the lion in his den, are you?” 

“Yes,” Scott said, “and I am not a bit scared 


A VISIT TO JARRED’S CABIN 

either. I met him last night and I liked him. 
He seems like a real man.” 

“Last night?” the old man repeated doubt¬ 
fully. 

“Yes, your little friend Vic fell off her horse 
down below here and hurt herself a little and I 
took her home.” 

“Oh!” Mr. Sanders exclaimed as though 
some mystery had been solved. “That's how 
it happened. I was wondering how you got 
into old Jarred’s house at night. Vic was not 
hurt bad, was she?” 

“Not so bad but what she almost tore me up 
before I got her home,” Scott replied. And he 
told the old man what had happened. 

“Sounds like Vic. So she was running away 
from home, was she? She’ll never go back 
either. I thought something would come of 
that row yesterday.” 

Scott was puzzled. “How is that ?” he asked. 

“Jim let Foster grab her. She’ll never for¬ 
give him for that.” 

“I see,” Scott said. “I can’t say that I blame 
her much, either.” 

“Well,” the old man sighed, “it may be 
9i 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


wrong to back the girl against her father, but 
I like Vic and there is no denying she is twice 
the man Jim is. She is just like her grand¬ 
father.” 

“I liked him,” Scott exclaimed. “He told me 
right away last night that he never would give 
up the feud, but I liked him all the same.” 

The old man opened his mouth as though to 
speak but changed his mind and closed it again. 
Then after a pause, “Well, stop in when you 
come down and tell me how Vic is, IT1 be 
anxious about her.” 

Scott hurried on. At the Morgan gate he 
remembered Mr. Sanders’ advice and shouted 
before he entered. Old Jarred appeared almost 
instantly in the doorway. When he saw who 
it was, he stood the long rifle against the cor¬ 
ner beside the door and called to Scott to come 
in. He met him halfway to the gate with ex¬ 
tended hand. 

“Come in, sir, come in, sir,” he repeated hos¬ 
pitably. “Vic is a little shy but I reckon she’ll 
be glad to see you.” 

“She seemed anything but glad to see me 
when I picked her up last night,” Scott 
92 


A VISIT TO JARRED’S CABIN 

laughed. “I thought she was going to tear me 
up before I could get her home.” 

Old Jarred chuckled. “Vic’s a fighter, she 
is. You see she had heard that rumor about 
the logging contract and she hates the Waits 
worse than I do. She feels right ashamed of 
herself this morning.” 

“Well, she needn’t,” Scott said. “I under¬ 
stood why it was and admired her nerve.” 

“If the Morgan men had half Vic’s nerve 
this feud might end,” old Jarred remarked bit¬ 
terly. 

“Why not drop it, anyway?” Scott asked. 
“I’ll wager there is not one of your worst ene¬ 
mies who would not admit that you did not do 
it because you were afraid. It seems such a 
pity to have it go on. It can end in only one 
way some day.” 

Old Jarred stopped in the doorway and 
looked at him for a moment. Scott had not 
intended to broach the subject so suddenly and 
he half expected a burst of anger, but it did 
not come. 

“Yes,” the old man answered sadly, “it can 
have only one ending. They will get me 
93 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


some day. But as I told you last night I 
shall never give it up; so let’s not discuss it.” 
He saw the disappointment in Scott’s face and 
laid a friendly hand on his shoulder. “I am 
sorry, my boy, for I know that you mean well. 
I suppose it does look to you like a wholly un¬ 
reasonable thing, but you don’t know all the 
story. You are asking something that it is 
utterly impossible for me to do. So it is better 
to drop it.” 

Scott could not hide his disappointment but 
he bowed his respect for the old man’s request. 
“I hope Vic was not badly hurt last night?” he 
asked. 

Jarred smiled his gratitude. “No, no. 
Sprained her knee a little, but she is hobbling 
around this morning and will be all right in a 
day or so.” 

The cabin into which Jarred led the way 
was a plain oblong structure built of logs. 
There was but one room which served as bed¬ 
room, dining room, iiving room and kitchen, 
but it was clean and everything seemed to be 
in order. 

“Pretty neat for an old man’s den,” Jarred 
94 


A VISIT TO JARRED’S CABIN 

chuckled with evident pride. “Vic did that for 
me this morning in spite of her crippled knee.” 

There was an uncertain thump on the back 
step and Scott turned to see Vic hopping in on 
one foot. She certainly looked like a different 
girl from the one he had struggled with the 
night before. She hopped toward him with¬ 
out embarrassment and held out her hand. 

“I am sorry I acted so badly last night,” she 
said frankly. “I hope that you will forget it. 
I would have been in a pickle without you.” 

Could this be the little wildcat he had picked 
up in the road the night before? Scott stared 
at her open-mouthed for a moment before he 
could find his tongue. 

“I could not very well expect anything else 
when I picked you up and carried you off 
against your will,” he laughed, when he had 
finally recovered from his astonishment. 

“She says she is going to stay with me now,” 
Jarred said. “Says she has had a row with her 
father and is not going back. I don’t know 
what the trouble is and I’m afraid to look it up 
for fear I might have to send her back.” 

He put his arm affectionately around the 

95 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


child and it was plain to see where he would 
put the blame. She cast an apprehensive 
glance at Scott and he knew she was worrying 
about the promise she had extracted from him 
the night before. He relieved her mind at once. 

“There are one or two things I would like to 
know before I go on with this timber sale, Mr. 
Morgan, and I think you can probably answer 
my questions better than any one else if you 
will.” 

Jarred nodded. “T11 be glad to help you all 
I can.” 

“I have already told you,” Scott proceeded, 
“that I am not willing to give the contract to 
either the Waits or the Morgans unless they 
will take it jointly. I have heard—and heard 
it so often that I think it must be true—that 
Mr. Reynolds promised this contract to the 
Waits. Of course either of you has a right to 
bid on it if you want to, and I can’t stop you. 
I could turn either of you down even though 
you were the high bidder, but you can easily 
see in what a disagreeable position that would 
place me and I don’t want to do it.” 

Jarred nodded his comprehension. 

96 


A VISIT TO JARRED’S CABIN 

“Could either faction put up a bond of fifty 
thousand dollars as a guaranty?” Scott asked. 

Jarred smiled sourly. “Five thousand would 
strain either of us considerable.” 

“Then it will be simple enough,” Scott said. 
“The law requires that guaranty. But I want 
to be perfectly certain that it cannot be met.” 

“You need not worry about that,” Jarred re¬ 
plied. “It would be altogether impossible.” 

Scott felt relieved. Here would be an easy 
way to get out of the promise Mr. Reynolds had 
made the Waits. Probably he had not told 
them anything about the necessity for a bond. 

“Then my next question, Mr. Morgan, is 
this. If an outsider takes that contract will 
the Waits and the Morgans work for him on 
the same job?” 

“They will not,” Jarred replied decisively, 
and Vic bristled visibly at the mere thought of 
it. “Moreover,” Jarred continued, “no outsider 
will take the contract.” 

“Why not?” Scott asked sharply. He had 
taken this as a threat and it made him bristle 
a little on his own part. 

“Because none of them will touch it for fear 

97 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


of getting mixed up in this feud. They have 
tried that and no one would risk it.” 

“It’s a wonder Mr. Reynolds would not tell 
me about that!” Scott exclaimed indignantly. 

“You would not need to know it if you had 
followed his plan,” Jarred remarked ironically. 

“Then I have one last question. Would the 
people here interfere with an outsider if he 
brought his own crew in here?” 

“I would not,” Jarred replied promptly, “and 
I don’t think any of our people would. I can’t 
answer for the others.” 

Scott rose to go. “I certainly appreciate 
your help, Mr. Morgan, and I feel that I can 
rely on what you say.” 

“Don’t leave a man much chance to do any¬ 
thing,” Jarred said sympathetically. 

“Not much,” Scott admitted, “but I am going 
to get that stuff logged if I have to do it my¬ 
self.” 

“Maybe you won’t always have this trouble,” 
Jarred said with a twinkle in his cold gray eye 
and a wink toward the child. “When I’m gone 
the rest of them will all let the feud drop.” 

The child straightened suddenly and the 

98 


A VISIT TO JARRED’S CABIN 

blood rushed to her cheeks, but she caught 
sight of the twinkle and subsided again with 
exactly the same twinkle in her own. 

Scott took his leave and when he rounded the 
turn in the road that shut off the view of the 
Morgan cabin the old man was still standing at 
the gate with his arm around the girl's shoul¬ 
ders. To Scott they represented the last link 
which was holding the old feud together. 


CHAPTER XII 


SCOTT ASKS FOR BIDS 

T HE next morning a wave of astonishment 
quickly followed by another of indigna¬ 
tion spread over the west mountain with al¬ 
most incredible rapidity, and a corresponding 
feeling of relief and satisfaction settled on the 
family of the Morgans. Quite the reverse of 
the situation of the day before. 

The sole cause of this momentous change 
was a small sign posted on the village bulletin 
board. It was couched in somewhat intricate 
legal language, but it said in effect that bids 
were now open for the logging contract and 
any one desiring to submit one must place it 
in the hands of the supervisor, along with a 
bond for fifty thousand dollars, within ten 
days. No one had seen either a Wait or a Mor¬ 
gan read it, but their knowledge of it was uni¬ 
versal. 

Single horsemen threaded their way along 


ioo 


SCOTT ASKS FOR BIDS 


by-roads and paths on the west slope to meet 
others at cabins scattered here and there over 
the mountainside, and all these little groups 
finally assembled at the home of Foster Wait. 
That worthy gentleman was half intoxicated, 
as usual, and greeted each sullen new arrival 
with a detailed blustering account of what he 
was going to do to the man who had double- 
crossed him. They did not seem to take much 
stock in what he said (it looked as though they 
had perhaps heard that same kind of bluster 
from him many times before) and their ap¬ 
parent indifference drove him to wilder boasts. 

Hopwood sat on the corner of the porch 
whittling a stick and apparently oblivious to 
all that was going on around him. He glanced 
occasionally from one of the group to another 
but the blank expression on his face never 
changed. The others paid no attention to him 
at all except when they wanted to know some¬ 
thing. They seemed to be strangely inconsis¬ 
tent. They treated him as an idiot except when 
they wanted news, but they put implicit confi¬ 
dence in what he said. 

“Where did you find this out, Hop?” one of 


IOI 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


the newcomers asked. It was Sewall Wait, 
the real leader of the Wait faction. Foster was 
the nominal ruler by inheritance, but Sewall 
furnished the brains which Foster lacked. He 
had to repeat the question before Hopwood 
seemed to understand. 

“It is on the bulletin board in the village,” 
Hopwood answered in an expressionless tone. 

“What did it say?” 

Hopwood repeated the gist of the notice. 

“Who read it to you?” 

Hopwood seemed offended at the string of 
questions. He did not answer at once but 
seemed to think better of it. “Mr. Roberts,” he 
answered in the same dull tone. 

Sewall turned towards Foster but came back 
again to Hopwood. “Where’s that man Rey¬ 
nolds?” he asked. 

“Left on the train yesterday,” Hopwood an¬ 
swered promptly. 

Sewall walked over to where Foster was rav¬ 
ing for the benefit of two late comers. “What’s 
the use of bawling like a spanked kid?” he 
asked in a disgusted tone. “That is a formal 
request for bids posted in regular form by the 
102 


SCOTT ASKS FOR BIDS 


U. S. Government, and if Hopwood has the 
lingo right it’s according to law. That man 
Reynolds is the fellow who made a sucker of 
you and he went home yesterday. I’m going 
home myself.” 

“Going home?” Foster raved. “And let that 
little squirt of a supervisor rob us of the con¬ 
tract and probably give it to old Jarred Mor¬ 
gan? No, sir, we’ll go down there and teach 
him that he can’t trifle with the Waits. That 
contract is ours and I am going to make him 
give it to us.” 

“And get your ears boxed for your trouble,” 
Sewall sneered as he walked to his horse. 
“Fighting the Morgans is one thing, but fight¬ 
ing the U. S. Government is something else.” 

Foster was furious at the reference to his 
boxed ears and started after him with waving 
fists, but Sewall rode slowly out of the yard 
without so much as looking at him, and his 
three sons followed him. 

Foster bawled threats and objurgations after 
them till they were far out of earshot and then 
returned to rail at the others. “Hopwood!” he 
shouted. 


103 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


They all looked at the place where Hop- 
wood had been sitting. It was vacant. Hop- 
wood had disappeared in his usual sudden man¬ 
ner. 

One by one the others tired of Foster’s futile 
raving and rode away till the hereditary leader 
of the family was left alone. The frenzy into 
which he had worked himself had sobered him 
and he looked after the last of his departing fol¬ 
lowers with anxious humiliation. He knew the 
trouble; it had happened before. He had talked 
too much and done too little. He would have 
to do something to reinstate himself and he 
owed the supervisor something anyway. This 
would be a good chance to kill two birds with 
one stone. He would have preferred some 
company but there was no chance of that now, 
and he prepared to go alone. 

In the meanwhile Scott was sitting down in 
the hotel waiting. He knew that nothing could 
come of this advertisement either on the bulle¬ 
tin board or in the local papers where he had 
sent it, and he wanted to be about his business. 
He knew what he was going to do now and he 
was anxious to be at it, but he knew what a 
104 


SCOTT ASKS FOR BIDS 


hubbub the news would make among the Waits 
and he did not want to appear to run away. 
He had to wait at least till he had seen Foster 
Wait. It would never do for them to come 
down and find that he had left the country as 
soon as he had posted the notice. His duty 
did not require him to stay there, but his pride 
did. 

He sat on the front porch, from which point 
of vantage he could bring the whole village 
under his surveillance at once. He could see 
the little white square of his posted notice on 
the bulletin board at the other end of the street, 
and he watched it curiously to see if any one 
would read it. He saw two or three from the 
east slope stop there, and come on to the Mor¬ 
gan store in apparent good humor. No one at 
all came down from the Wait territory, and 
Scott was disappointed because they were the 
ones on whom he was anxious to note the 
effect. 

One hour crawled slowly after another and 
he patiently watched the lights and shadows 
creeping over the mountain slopes as the sun 
rose higher in the heavens. It was after ten 

105 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


o'clock when Scott happened to glance to his 
right and started to find Hopwood sitting in an 
inconspicuous place on the end of the porch. 

“Where under the sun did you come from, 
Hopwood?" he exclaimed. 

Hopwood spread his hands in both directions 
as he always did to indicate that he came from 
everywhere. 

“Foster is pretty mad," he remarked 
casually. 

“Have you seen him?" Scott asked anxiously. 

Hopwood nodded. “I saw them all." 

“I suppose they were holding a big family 
powwow over it and will all be swarming down 
here after a while to find out what it means." 
Scott chuckled at the discomfiture he was caus¬ 
ing the Waits, for he had taken a distinct dis¬ 
like to the whole tribe with the exception of 
Hopwood. 

“No," Hopwood remarked quietly, “they are 
not coming, but maybe Foster will get up the 
nerve to come down alone. He’ll pretty near 
have to or he will be done for." 

“What do you mean?" Scott asked. “I 
thought they always went in a gang." 

106 


SCOTT ASKS FOR BIDS 


Hopwood shook his head. “Sewall would 
not back him up.” 

“Who is Sewall?” Scott had never heard of 
him and he had gathered from what he had 
heard that Foster was the leader of the Waits. 

“He’s the only Wait who has any brains,” 
Hopwood answered, and added naively, “ex¬ 
cept me.” 

Scott glanced at him keenly but saw only the 
usual blank expression. “By George, Hop- 
wood !” he exclaimed, “I believe you really have 
more brains than any of them. But what do 
you mean by saying that Foster will have to 
come ?” 

“He’s been saying so much about what he is 
going to do to you that he will have to do it or 
they will quit him,” Hopwood explained. 

Scott rubbed his hands with satisfaction at 
the prospect of a meeting with Foster Wait 
alone. 

“Are you sure he will come, Hopwood?” 

Hopwood was silent a moment as though 
waiting for a message. “Yes,” he said confi¬ 
dently. “He’ll be here in about an hour. Don’t 
let him scare you. He’s a coward.” 

107 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


“Going to try to scare me into it, is he?” 
Scott asked, but Hopwood had disappeared and 
left him to plan alone for his meeting with Fos¬ 
ter 'Wait. 


CHAPTER XIII 


FOSTER WAIT DEMANDS THE CONTRACT 

T HE news that Foster Wait had been boast¬ 
ing among his followers of the terrible 
things he was going to do to the supervisor and 
the possibility of his coming down alone to 
make good his threats gave Scott a new inter¬ 
est in the meeting. He had taken an instinctive 
dislike to the man at first sight, and everything 
he had seen and heard of him since had only 
served to intensify that feeling. 

Foster was a much larger man than Scott, 
but Scott had not needed Hopwood’s warning 
to tell him that the giant was a coward. He 
had seen it and felt it. Probably his followers 
knew it, too, and maybe that was the reason 
they had refused to back him up. That was 
one of the things he had wanted to ask Hop- 
wood, but the man of the iron hat always dis¬ 
appeared before he found out half that he 
wanted to know. 

A man appeared suddenly at the end of the 
109 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


village and Scott watched him eagerly, but it 
proved to be only the mail carrier who had 
stopped to read the notice. A new notice on 
the Caspar bulletin board was in itself an event. 
The time dragged slowly by and still the ex¬ 
pected visitor did not arrive. Could Hopwood 
have failed in his prophecy? He had the repu¬ 
tation of being infallible. 

Things always happen when they are least 
expected, and Foster Wait had ridden his white 
horse halfway up the village street before Scott 
saw him. But even then the suspense was not 
over for the rider stopped at the store instead 
of coming straight to the hotel as Scott had 
hoped. Probably he had dropped in there to 
bolster up his nerve with a little more brag¬ 
ging, Scott thought. If so, he must have had 
a great deal of bragging to do, for ten minutes 
elapsed and he had not come out. 

Finally some one came out of the store and 
started for the hotel. Scott was disappointed 
to see that it was not Foster but one of the boys 
who stayed at the store. The boy shuffled along 
slowly looking everywhere except at Scott, and 
plainly showing that his errand was not to his 


no 


WAIT DEMANDS THE CONTRACT 


liking. He headed for the corner of the house 
as though he were going around to the back 
door but changed his course suddenly and 
edged along the front of the porch. His ac¬ 
tions were so peculiar that Scott watched him 
keenly. 

The boy finally came to a halt about ten feet 
away and looked the front of the house over 
carefully as though he had come to estimate 
the cost of a new coat of paint. 

“Foster says he wants to see you at the store 
right away,” the boy gulped suddenly without 
looking at Scott. 

Scott was so amused at the bo}^s embarrass¬ 
ment that he almost forgot to be indignant at 
Foster's message, but he stiffened a little as he 
realized the impertinence of the command. 

“Tell Mr. Wait that I am at the hotel and 
will be glad to see him any time he cares to 
come,” Scott said with forced dignity. 

“That's what I told him,” the boy said, as 
he looked at Scott for the first time. And he 
seemed very much relieved. He hopped out of 
the gate and whistled all the way to the store. 

Scott waited anxiously for the result of his 


hi 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


message. He did not have to wait so long this 
time. Foster's angry roar when he heard the 
boy's message reached Scott at the hotel, and 
the next minute Foster lunged out of the door. 
Three men followed him out on to the store 
porch, but they stopped there and watched him 
clamber on to his big white horse. Another 
small group gathered in front of the Morgan 
store to see the show. 

It was not over seventy yards from the store 
to the hotel and it would have been easier for 
Foster to walk, but he was not used to walking 
and he felt that he would be more impressive 
on his horse. He started from the store at a 
gallop but before he had covered the short dis¬ 
tance he had slowed down to a walk. He drew 
up at the gate and scowled at Scott fiercely. 

“When I tell people to come to me they 
come," he blustered. He knew when he said it 
that it was the wrong thing to say but he could 
not help it. 

Scott looked at him calmly. “It must be very 
convenient to have them so well trained," he 
remarked. 

“You will be trained, too, before I am 


112 


WAIT DEMANDS THE CONTRACT 


through with you,” Foster blustered. “That's 
what I came for.” 

“Then maybe you better come in and have a 
seat, for it will probably take some time.” 
Scott pushed forward a chair and smiled at 
him tauntingly. 

Foster hesitated. He felt that he was de¬ 
cidedly getting the worst of it and he was un¬ 
certain just how to proceed. He might force 
him down to the store at the point of his rifle, 
but he was a coward at heart and he feared the 
consequences. He slowly dismounted and 
swaggered up to the porch with all the brag¬ 
gadocio he could muster. Scott rose to meet 
him. Foster climbed the two steps to the porch 
and glared down at Scott from his superior 
height. 

“I want to know what you mean by not giv¬ 
ing us that logging contract?” he blustered 
fiercely. 

“Won't you be seated?” Scott said quietly, 
as he offered him a chair. 

“I did not come here to sit down,” Foster 
growled angrily. “I came here to find out why 
you did not give us that logging contract.” 

113 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


“Oh,” Scott said as though puzzled, “I un¬ 
derstood you to say that you came to train me 
to come when you called.” 

“I’ll do that, too, before I’m through with 
you,” Foster exclaimed, furiously. “Are you 
going to answer my question or will I have to 
beat it out of you?” 

Scott looked him calmly in the eye a moment 
and smiled contemptuously. “You want to 
know why I did not give this contract to ‘us’? 
Just whom do you mean? Who is ‘us’? You 
forget that you are a stranger to me.” 

Foster stared at him open-mouthed. Then 
the blood rushed to his already purple face, his 
neck swelled and his whole frame shook with 
the fury of his passion. His words were al¬ 
most inarticulate. “You know me, you inso¬ 
lent hound. Everybody knows Foster Wait 
and a lot of ’em to their sorrow. Answer that 
question before I send you after old Jarred 
Morgan. I’ll teach you to insult a Wait!” 

Scott knew of Foster’s furious temper and he 
had been doing his best to arouse it. He 
wanted him to fight and he knew that he would 
not do it except in a fit of passion. He knew his 
114 


WAIT DEMANDS THE CONTRACT 


danger and he watched the man's every move 
as he gave his temper one more prod. 

“Talk sense, Mr. Wait, if you want an an¬ 
swer from me,” he sneered. “Threats do not 
scare me any more than they do old Jarred 
Morgan.” 

Foster gave a roar of rage and threw forward 
his long rifle. He would undoubtedly have 
shot Scott as he had shot several other men 
when worked up to an uncontrollable passion, 
but Scott had been watching for just such a 
move. 

He had already grasped hold of a short piece 
of pipe which he had leaned up against a pillar 
of the porch in case of emergency, and when 
Foster threw forward his rifle he struck the 
barrel with all his might. The unexpected 
blow knocked the weapon out of Foster's 
hands, and the bullet went through the roof of 
the porch. 

The suddenness of it all bewildered Foster 
for a moment and before he had fully recov¬ 
ered, Scott struck him a crushing blow on the 
jaw. The blow staggered him, but he quickly 
recovered his balance and threw himself upon 
US 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


Scott with the fury of a wild animal. He was 
usually a coward but now he was a crazy man, 
blinded by his passion, and did not realize what 
he was doing. 

His enormous size and great reach gave him 
a decided advantage in one way but it was par¬ 
tially offset by Scott’s skill and coolness. If 
he should succeed in landing one of his terrific 
but wild swings or in grappling his opponent 
the fight could have but one ending. Scott’s 
only chance was to keep out of his reach and 
hammer him into submission. Foster fought 
with all the wild fury of a madman; Scott, 
with the coolness of a boxing master. 

Again and again Scott landed blows which 
would have felled a smaller man. Some of 
them staggered this giant a little but most of 
them seemed to have no effect at all. Scott 
was handicapped by the necessity of keeping 
entirely out of his reach. A grazing blow on 
the side of his head warned him that if one of 
them should land squarely he would be done 
for. 

In attempting to avoid one of Foster’s mad 
rushes Scott stepped off the edge of the porch 
116 


WAIT DEMANDS THE CONTRACT 


and fell on his back on the ground. Instantly 
Foster jumped for his head with both hob¬ 
nailed boots. For the fraction of a second 
Scott, stunned by the fall, saw this demon hov¬ 
ering over him, and the sight almost sickened 
him. But he recovered just in time to roll sud¬ 
denly over out of reach and spring to his feet. 
Foster, dazed by the escape of his victim, 
tripped and fell. Scott could have jumped on 
the lumbering giant there on the ground but 
he had been taught to play the game fair. 
Moreover, he did not want this man to have any 
excuse. He wanted to thrash him as he had 
never been thrashed before and make him ac¬ 
knowledge it. 

The men from both stores had edged up to 
the fence and almost forgotten the dead line in 
their excitement. 

Scott let the giant scramble to his feet un¬ 
molested, and paid dear for his chivalry. He 
had counted on this man’s dissipation sapping 
his endurance. It was beginning to tell on him. 
His breath was coming in great choking gasps 
but his mountain training had made him tough. 
Moreover, he realized that his strength was 
ii 7 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


waning, and with that knowledge his blind 
fury gave way to craft. 

Scott had always boxed according to the 
rules of the ring, and he was taken entirely off 
his guard when Foster suddenly sprang some 
lumberjack tactics and landed his hobnailed 
boot squarely in his stomach. For a second 
everything turned black before him and he 
staggered like a drunken man. As in a haze he 
saw the giant spring forward to finish him off. 
With the instinct of the fighter, he side-stepped 
and the instant’s reprieve brought back his 
wandering senses and his wind. 

When he saw the slight effect of his blows 
earlier in the fight he had devoted himself al¬ 
most entirely to defense and saved his strength 
till Foster should be tired out. Now he took 
the offensive with all his power. He rained 
blow after blow on the gasping giant with be¬ 
wildering rapidity and finally, seeing the man 
was almost exhausted, he threw every ounce of 
strength into a blow square on the point of his 
chin. 

The big fellow staggered an instant and sank 
limply in a lifeless heap. Scott leaned panting 
118 


WAIT DEMANDS THE CONTRACT 


against the fence. He was almost exhausted. 
Foster moved uneasily and raised himself 
groaning on one elbow. 

“Are you through training me to come when 
you call?” Scott asked between his gasps for 
breath. 

Foster rose slowly and wobbled towards the 
gate without a word. Not a word of sympathy 
came from his friends and they watched him 
clamber painfully on to his horse without offer¬ 
ing any assistance. He rode slowly down the 
village street with drooping head, a thoroughly 
beaten man. 

The two groups of men walked silently back 
to the stores and left Scott still leaning against 
the fence, weak and sick, but filled with a feel¬ 
ing of intense satisfaction. 


CHAPTER XIV 


SCOTT MAKES A TRIP TO WASHINGTON 

S COTT leaned wearily on the picket fence 
for a long time after the old white horse 
had carried Foster out of sight up the mountain 
road. He did not bear any trace of the fight on 
his face, but his body was sore and he was very 
nearly exhausted. He could not but smile as 
he stood there with heaving chest to think how 
far he had departed from the policy of strict 
neutrality which he had laid down for himself. 
But from the remarks which Hopwood had 
dropped that morning he doubted whether it 
would make very much difference to the Waits. 

Well, it was done now, anyway, no matter 
what the Waits might think. He had shown 
them that he had no intention of running away, 
and he felt that he could now go about his own 
business without running the risk of being 
called a coward. As he turned toward the 
hotel he saw Hopwood leaning on the corner 
of the fence. 


120 


MAKES A TRIP TO WASHINGTON 


“Well, Hopwood, did you see the big fight ?” 
he asked smilingly. 

“That was a good job/’ Hopwood replied 
soberly. 

“Shall I have to fight all of the rest of the 
Waits now, Hopwood ?” Scott asked a little 
anxiously. He did not want to waste any more 
time waiting for these people or fighting them. 

Hopwood shook his head. “Sewall told him 
he would get his ears boxed again. They will 
be glad of it.” 

“Listen, Hopwood. Is Sewall going to try 
to take the contract?” Scott asked earnestly. 

“No,” Hopwood replied emphatically. “How 
could he? There is not that much money in 
the whole country.” 

“I did not think there was myself but I 
wanted to make sure of it. Could you deliver 
a message for me, Hopwood?” 

Hopwood looked up eagerly. Collecting news 
and carrying messages were things he liked 
best to do. He did not have to speak. Scott 
could see that he was more than willing. 

“I have some business I want to attend to, 
Hopwood,” Scott continued, “and I'll have .to 


121 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


go away for a couple of days. If I go now it 
will look as though I have thrashed Foster and 
then run away. I want you to tell Foster Wait, 
or maybe it would be better to tell Sewall, if he 
is the real head of the family, that I am going 
away for three days but will be back here Sat¬ 
urday. You can tell the same thing to Jarred, 
too, so that they will all know it. Do you think 
that you have it straight now?” 

Hopwood nodded gravely. “I always get 
messages straight,” he replied proudly. “You 
are sure you will be back Saturday ?” He had 
taken a strange liking to this man who had 
treated him like a rational being and thrashed 
his surly uncle. 

“Yes, Hopwood, F11 certainly be here Sat¬ 
urday without fail, and,” he added, for he could 
see how the friendship pleased Hopwood, “I 
would like to see you again pretty soon after 
I get back.” 

He might as well have saved himself the 
trouble, for Hopwood had gone to deliver his 
precious message. Scott sighed when he saw 
that the man was gone. He could not get used 
to his unexpected movements. He wasted no 


122 


MAKES A TRIP TO WASHINGTON 


more thoughts on it now. The dinner bell 
rang, on time for once, and the station agent 
came in the gate. 

“Hear you beat up Foster Wait,” he grinned. 

“Yes,” Scott admitted. “He forced it on me 
but I was glad of the opportunity. Who told 
you?” 

“One of the Wait boys told me, but that 
would have been unnecessary after I saw Fos¬ 
ter.” 

“I wonder what the Waits will think of it?” 
Scott asked. He was anxious to have some one 
back up Hopwood's opinion. 

“They are as tickled as you are,” the agent 
answered confidently. “He is always brag¬ 
ging, and none of them like him. He'll prob¬ 
ably have to quit the country after this.” 

Scott was glad to hear it. That would leave 
him free to carry out his plans. He told the 
agent of the trip he was going to make, and 
spent the afternoon busily working over a 
bunch of legal-looking papers. Four o'clock 
found him on the afternoon train headed north, 
an impatient traveler. 

Scott had not told any one where he was 
123 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


going. If he had said that he was going to 
Washington, they would have thought that he 
was running away as the other fellows had 
done. But he was going to Washington, and 
when he got there he lost no time in going to 
the Forest Service office and to the chief of his 
division. 

Mr. Johns seemed very much surprised to 
see him back so soon. “Well, Burton,” he 
laughed, “I didn’t think that they could put the 
run on you, not so soon, anyway.” He laughed, 
but at the same time it was plain that he was 
disappointed. 

“Well, they have,” Scott replied, “but I am 
going back.” 

Mr Johns brightened at once. “That sounds 
better,” he said heartily. 

“There are one or two things about that log¬ 
ging contract I want to make sure of,” Scott 
said. “As I understand it, those logs have been 
sold and we have contracted to have them de¬ 
livered at a certain time.” 

“That’s right,” Mr. Johns agreed. “It is 
rather an unusual thing to do, but we were 
forced to it in this instance or we could not 
124 


MAKES A TRIP TO WASHINGTON 


have bought that piece of land for the forest 
at all.” 

“And now,” Scott continued, “we are respon¬ 
sible for the delivery, and no one will take the 
logging contract.” 

Mr. Johns frowned. “I thought that man 
Reynolds told me that he had arranged for the 
logging contract before he left.” 

“Maybe he thought he had,” Scott replied 
bitterly, “but he hadn’t.” 

“Don’t be bashful in saying what you think 
about him,” Mr. Johns urged. “He was a man 
we took on temporarily, and we’ve let him out 
again.” 

“It is a good thing,” Scott said. “I think I 
should have killed him myself if he had stayed 
there. Do you know the situation down there, 
Mr. Johns?” 

“No,” Mr. Johns replied, “I am beginning to 
think that I do not. Two men were sent there 
before you were. Both of them seemed to be 
getting along fine according to their reports, 
but one suddenly resigned and the other asked 
for a transfer. Neither of them gave a very 
satisfactory reason.” 


125 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


Scott grinned. “I can tell you the reason. 
There is an Ai feud down there. Those fellows 
tied up with one party, and the other one ran 
them out of the country.” 

Mr. Johns was intensely interested and in¬ 
sisted on knowing all the details. “But why 
not ignore both factions and give the contract 
to an outsider? That is altogether possible.” 

“That’s what I thought,” Scott said, “but 
everybody knows of that feud, and no one will 
touch the contract for fear of getting mixed up 
in it.” 

Mr. Johns rubbed his forehead in perplexity. 
“And unless we can deliver those logs on time 
we’ll lose our option on that piece of land. 
What are you going to do about it?” He 
looked at Scott helplessly. 

“Resign like the rest of them,” Scott grinned. 

“Oh, come now, Burton,” Mr. Johns remon¬ 
strated. “I did not expect that of you. You 
have the reputation of being resourceful and 
a fighter. You are not going to resign and let 
yourself be run out of the country at the first 
sign of trouble, are you?” 

“Yes,” Scott replied firmly, “I’m going to 
126 


MAKES A TRIP TO WASHINGTON 


resign but I’m not going to be run out of the 
country. I want to resign and take that log¬ 
ging contract myself.” 

Mr. Johns looked at him a moment in open- 
mouthed astonishment. "Do you mean that?” 
he asked eagerly. 

Scott nodded. "If it will be all right with 
you. I am going to put in my bid. I had some 
experience logging my own timber last winter, 
you know, and Td be willing to spend my last 
dollar to beat that feud down there.” 

His chief thought a moment. "It's a bit ir¬ 
regular, and Til have to take it up with the 
forester, but under the circumstances I believe 
it can be done.” 

The upshot of the matter was that Scott 
started back for North Carolina the next day 
with the assurance that if no one else made a 
satisfactory bid, his resignation would be ac¬ 
cepted and he would be awarded the contract. 

Three days before he had been hoping for 
some one to bid on that same contract; now he 
was praying with all his heart that no one 
would. 


CHAPTER XV 


SCOTT HEARS SOME RUMBLINGS OF THE 
OLD FEUD 

S COTT stopped for a day in Asheville to 
make some business arrangements for 
starting the logging operations in case he was 
awarded the contract and then hurried back to 
Caspar. He found Hopwood, who had consti¬ 
tuted himself his faithful follower, waiting for 
him in the corner of the hotel yard. 

“I knew you’d come back,” Hopwood re¬ 
marked in a tone of extreme satisfaction. 

“Why?” Scott asked. “Did any one think 
that I was not coming back?” 

Hopwood nodded. “They all said you had 
run away like all the others, and Foster has 
been taking most of the credit for it.” 

Scott ground his teeth. “I suppose that will 
set him up in business again with the rest of 
the family.” 

“A lot of them believed it, but now that you 
128 


SCOTT HEARS SOME RUMBLINGS 


have come back he will probably have to leave 
the country himself. None of them will believe 
him now.” 

“Well, tell them that I have come back, Hop- 
wood, and Eve come back to stay. They will 
find out before I am through that I am not very 
badly scared after all.” 

“Has any one taken the logging contract?” 
Hopwood asked eagerly. “It would help me 
if I could predict it right,” he added wistfully. 

Scott looked at him curiously a moment. 
The more he saw of Hopwood the harder it was 
for him to believe him an idiot. In any event it 
was perfectly clear that he was devoted to him 
and he decided to make him his confidant. It 
could not do him much harm if the man of the 
iron hat did not keep faith in this and it might 
make him a closer friend. 

“Yes, Hopwood, some one has bid on it. 
You can safely predict that the logging will 
begin in ten days, for—but you must not pub¬ 
lish this part of it—if no one else takes the job 
I am going to resign and take it myself.” 

“Oh!” Hopwood exclaimed with a gasp of 
satisfaction. “I won't tell them but you don't 
129 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


know how much good it will do me to know 
that.” And without waiting to make his usual 
mysterious disappearance he walked quickly 
into the woods to carry the news of Scott’s 
return. 

Scott was not surprised to find that no one 
had responded to his call for bids. He had 
found out in Asheville that there was practi¬ 
cally no chance of any one showing any interest 
in it. He hoped no one would. He had to con¬ 
fide his plans to the station agent because he 
had to send a number of telegrams. Probably 
Caspar had never done such a business in tele¬ 
grams before in all its existence, even when the 
feud was at its height. 

For the next week Scott devoted all his time 
to a careful study of the area which was to be 
logged. From breakfast till supper-time every 
day he hiked over the mountains, running out 
the boundary lines, sketching the topography 
and tentatively locating the logging roads. 
This work led him through the territory and 
by the cabins of many of the Waits but he did 
not see any of them. They seemed to be sulk¬ 
ing in their tents. 


130 


SCOTT HEARS SOME RUMBLINGS 


It seemed to Scott to be a strange country. 
Long straight slopes stretched unbroken to the 
high, level ridges. They were grooved every 
quarter mile or less with shallow draws and not 
far below the ridge in these draws were springs 
which sent tiny, crystal-clear streams of ice- 
cold water trickling down into the valley. The 
low places and also many of the higher slopes 
were covered with a solid mat of rhododendron 
and laurel, so thick that a man was obliged to 
break or cut his way through it. It was the 
densest growth he had ever seen outside of the 
cane brakes of Florida. The great masses of 
white flowers made a wonderful sight, but after 
he had tried to run a line through the stuff for 
a couple of days he could no longer see the 
flowers. 

But the ridges were the strangest of all. 
They were narrow but straight and level, so 
level that the old Indian trails followed them 
rather than the valleys. And the big red oaks 
came right up to the top. Only at long inter¬ 
vals did the ridges dip to a low pass; otherwise, 
they stretched for miles as level as the floor 
and were clear of underbrush. 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


It was on one of these level, open trails that 
Scott had the scare of his life. He had been 
familiar with razorback hogs in Florida. He 
had seen one tear a hound to pieces one day and 
had learned to fear the animals as he feared 
nothing else in the forest. Tall, thin and ca¬ 
pable of great speed, they were entirely differ¬ 
ent from any hogs he had ever seen at home. 
Their heads were half as long as their bodies, 
with large tusks and powerful jaws, and they 
were fearless. Once they had made up their 
minds to charge, nothing would turn them. 
One had to kill them or get out of the way. 

One morning as Scott was going out to work 
he saw an old sow with a litter of very small 
pigs in a clump of bushes beside the trail, and 
he gave her a wide berth. That evening on the 
way home he had forgotten all about her. He 
was absorbed in his plans for the logging job 
and wholly oblivious of his surroundings. The 
razorback never entered his head. 

A large red oak three feet in diameter had 
fallen across the trail and Scott vaulted it me¬ 
chanically, hardly knowing what he was doing. 
His feet had scarcely struck the ground when 
132 


SCOTT HEARS SOME RUMBLINGS 


he heard a vicious “woof,” and the old sow 
darted out from under the other end of the log 
headed straight for him under a full head of 
steam. 

Scott was frightened as he had never been 
frightened before. With one terrified spring 
he vaulted back over the log. That would have 
been sufficient protection from an ordinary pig, 
but a fallen tree meant nothing to a razorback. 
She cleared the tree without the slightest hesi¬ 
tation and was close behind him. 

This unexpeced jump so terrified Scott that 
he bolted like a frightened horse. He had 
never been a very fast runner but now he 
turned straight down the side of the mountain 
and made a new life record. It seemed to him 
that his feet were hitting the ground only about 
every thirty feet. Below him he saw a stream 
with high, steep banks, and at one point a tree 
had fallen across it. He made madly for that 
spot, somehow managed to stay on the log, 
tripped and fell in a heap on the other side. He 
scrambled to his feet expecting to find those 
ugly tusks at his very throat only to find in¬ 
stead that the old sow was fully satisfied with 
133 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


his retreat and was already trotting back up 
the slope to her babies. 

Scott could not help laughing as he thought 
what a great show it would have been for a 
spectator. The conqueror of Foster Wait 
breaking the world’s record in his endeavors to 
get away from an angry pig. And yet it might 
have been serious, and he knew that he would 
run as fast or faster next time. 

He was getting himself together for the 
climb back up the ridge when he noticed a 
deeply worn trail along the edge of the little 
creek. He thought at first that it was made 
by the razorbacks and the cattle which roamed 
around the mountains in considerable numbers, 
but he was surprised to find that the tracks 
were made by men, and some of them very re¬ 
cently. 

Where could such a well-worn path as that 
lead to away up there on the mountainside? It 
might be a short cut over the ridge into the 
Tennessee valley, but why should so many 
people be traveling that way on foot? These 
people always rode horseback whenever they 
were going any considerable distance. He de- 
134 


SCOTT HEARS SOME RUMBLINGS 


termined to follow it up and find out for him¬ 
self. It was on the forest and it was his busi¬ 
ness to know about it. 

The trail run obliquely upward across the 
face of the mountain and in the next draw it 
ducked into a dense patch of rhododendron. 
There it was very evident that the trail had 
been built for a purpose. It was cut out clear 
two feet wide and had been used so long that 
the stubs had all been worn down smooth. 

While he was examining it he was startled 
by the sound of approaching voices, raised high 
in argument if not in an actual quarrel. At 
first the voices were too distant for the words 
to be distinguished. Scott had no reason to 
avoid these people whoever they might be, and 
it never occurred to him to hide till he caught a 
sentence distinctly. 

“I tell you, Foster, it won’t do. You were 
licked and you are done for, and that is all there 
is about it.” 

Scott did not recognize the voice, but he had 
every reason to believe that they were talking 
about him and he wanted to hear the rest of it. 
He slipped back of a big oak tree beside the 
135 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 

trail and listened. The voices came nearer till 
he could distinguish both sides of the conver¬ 
sation. 

“I know it would work.” It was Foster 
speaking now, and his voice was thick and sul¬ 
len. “Why wouldn’t it work? If I started a 
fight, the Morgans would have to fight; and if 
they fought, the Waits would have to fight, and 
then we would clean them up. It’s time they 
were cleaned up. They kept us from getting 
that logging contract and they’ll keep us from 
getting anything else. I’m for cleaning them 
up, I tell you.” 

“And I’m telling you that it won’t work,” the 
other voice answered curtly. 

“Why won’t it ?” Foster persisted. “Are you 
afraid of them?” 

“Afraid of them?” the other exclaimed con¬ 
temptuously. “No, but I am not fool enough 
to fall for your scheme. And neither will the 
others. You’re down and out. You know it 
and you think you can get back on your feet 
by starting a fight. Well, you can’t.” 

Scott peeped around the tree and saw them 
standing at the entrance of the tunnel into the 
136 


SCOTT HEARS SOME RUMBLINGS 


rhododendron. One, as he already knew, was 
Foster Wait. The other was a short man of 
medium build, and rather clean-cut features. 
He seemed wide awake and altogether differ¬ 
ent from the other Waits he had seen. Instinc¬ 
tively he felt from what Hopwood had said that 
this man must be Sewall Wait, the brains of 
the family. 

The smaller man was staring silently at Fos¬ 
ter with a manner showing both domination 
and disgust. Foster shifted uneasily from one 
foot to the other and looked uncertainly about 
him. He was unable to look Sewall steadily 
in the eye, but his braggart habit finally came 
to his rescue. 

“Well, it doesn’t matter so much what you 
think. It is up to me to decide and if I say 
fight, you will have to fight,” and he swag¬ 
gered off down the trail up which Scott had 
come. 

Sewall looked after him contemptuously for 
a moment, shrugged his shoulders, and turned 
into a faint trail which led straight down the 
mountain. 

When they were both out of sight Scott came 
137 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


out of his hiding place. He decided to investi¬ 
gate the trail at some other time, and climbed 
back to the ridge. What he had just heard 
gave him something to think about. He knew 
now that there was nothing neutral about him. 
His sympathies were all with old Jarred and he 
hurried home to warn him of his danger. 


CHAPTER XVI 


SCOTT HAS AN INTERVIEW WITH SEWALL 



HE next day Scott was still worrying over 


what he had overheard on the mountain 
the evening before. He did not know what to 
do. At first he had determined to carry a warn¬ 
ing straight to old Jarred Morgan, but what 
good would that do? Jarred could not stop the 
Waits from starting a fight even if he tried, and 
no one had ever heard of his trying. 

He wanted to see Hopwood and ask his ad¬ 
vice but for once Hopwood did not show up 
when he was wanted. He wasted all the fore¬ 
noon watching for him. Then he suddenly re¬ 
membered what Hopwood had said about 
Sewall being the real leader of the Waits and 
determined to go and see him at once. He had 
two reasons for going. He wanted to see 
where he stood on the question of the feud, and 
he wanted to know if it was he who was talking 
to Foster the day before. 

Immediately after lunch he started for the 


139 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


cabin which the agent pointed out to him as a 
speck up on the mountainside. On the way up 
he saw Foster approaching on his white horse, 
but Foster evidently did not care to meet the 
man who had given him such a thrashing and 
turned off into the woods. He had his rifle 
with him and Scott did not feel comfortable till 
he was well past the spot. He half expected 
to hear a shot and had an uncomfortable feel¬ 
ing that some one was aiming at a spot between 
his shoulder blades. 

When he came in sight of the cabin he was 
surprised at its appearance. All the Wait 
cabins he had seen were slovenly and seedy- 
looking, as though no one had taken any inter¬ 
est whatever in them since they were first built. 
This one was very different. The inevitable 
picket fence, which Scott had now learned was 
to keep out the wandering razorbacks, was 
neatly whitewashed. The house was newly 
painted and the roof had recently been 
shingled. There was real sod in the yard and 
there was a bed of gorgeous flowers beside 
the porch. 

Scott stopped at the gate and shouted. A 
140 


HAS AN INTERVIEW WITH SEWALL 


middle-aged woman came to the door and 
looked surprised at the sight of a stranger. 
Scott’s surprise was even greater. Instead of 
the regulation Mother Hubbard which all the 
women in that country seemed to wear, this 
woman was neatly dressed in a blue house dress 
and a white apron. She quickly recovered from 
her surprise and smiled pleasantly. 

“Won’t you come in?” she said sweetly. 
“This is one house,” she explained, “where you 
don’t have to stand outside and shout.” 

Scott thought at first that she was criticizing 
his manners, but he saw from the way she said 
it that she was stating this only as a matter of 
pride. 

“I am glad to know there is one such place,” 
Scott said. “I was told that it is always safer 
to shout, and they did not tell me that there 
were any exceptions. Does Mr. Sewall Wait 
live here?” 

“Yes,” she replied offering him a chair. 
“Please have a seat and I’ll call him. It is such 
a beautiful day that I am sure you will find it 
pleasanter here on the porch than inside.” 

Scott was a little disappointed for he would 
141 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 

have liked to see what the inside of this house 
was like, but he thanked her and took the of¬ 
fered chair. He did not have long to wait. He 
heard quick footsteps inside the house, and 
the man he had seen with Foster stepped 
briskly out on to the porch. 

Scott arose. “Mr. Wait, my name is Burton, 
and I am the new supervisor at Caspar.” 

Sewall had sized him up at a single glance 
and extended his hand. “Glad to know you, 
Mr. Burton,” he smiled mischievously. “I 
have heard of you before from my cousin Fos¬ 
ter.” 

Scott blushed like a schoolgirl. “I regret 
that I was forced into a quarrel with your 
cousin, but I assure you, Mr. Wait, that it was 
not of my seeking.” 

“Pshaw!” Sewall exclaimed heartily. “Don't 
let that worry you. Everybody around here 
knows Foster, and I for one am glad that you 
thrashed him.” 

“I am glad that the rest of you feel that 
way,” Scott said. “But it was a shame that I 
had to do it when I was trying so hard to be 
absolutely neutral. When I heard of this feud, 
142 


HAS AN INTERVIEW WITH SEW ALL 


Mr. Wait, I determined not to get mixed up in 
it as the others had done. Unfortunately, Mr. 
Reynolds was ignorant of both the feud and 
the regulations, and he made promises to your 
family which the law would not permit me to 
keep. It is illegal to let a contract without 
submitting it to bids and requiring a bond. I 
admit frankly that I was glad of it, because I 
did not want to see either party get it as long as 
this feud exists.” 

“I don't blame you,” Sewall agreed sadly. 
“It would just add to the mess that already 
exists.” 

“That is the reason I came to see you, Mr. 
Wait,” Scott exclaimed quickly. “It seems to 
me a pity for this feud to continue indefinitely. 
I heard that you had some influence with your 
family and I want to see if we can't figure out 
some way to bring it to an end.” 

Sewall shook his head sadly. “Did you ever 
see old Jarred Morgan?” he asked hopelessly. 

“Yes,” Scott said. “I have met him and I 
admit that he turned my proposition down 
cold.” 

“That's the trouble,” Sewall interrupted a 
143 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


little impatiently. “He will never give up. He 
and that little vixen of a Vic nurse the feud like 
an only child." 

“That's true enough," Scott admitted. “But 
they are in the minority and I cannot blame 
them much. I cannot help but admire the old 
man's gameness in a way. I thought possibly 
the larger party could afford to make the over¬ 
ture. You are an educated man, Mr. Wait, and 
you must see the futility of it." 

“See it? Why, of course, I see it," Sewall ex¬ 
claimed bitterly. “I am the only one of the 
Waits who had the ambition to drag myself out 
of the Middle Ages in which the rest of them 
are living, and I'd make them drop that feud 
to-morrow if I could. Foster is the only one 
on this side who wants to keep it up. The rest 
would drop it quick enough if old Jarred would 
let them, but as long as he holds out, their 
pride will not let them give it up. And what 
would be the use of our quitting if Jarred did 
not?" 

“That's true," Scott sighed, “but I have not 
given up hope if you are willing. I want to try 
again to persaude Jarred." 

144 


HAS AN INTERVIEW WITH SEWALL 


“Go to it,” Sewall replied gloomily, “but you 
will not succeed.” 

“Maybe not,” Scott said, “but I want to try. 
Can I count on you to avoid any new outbreaks 
while I am trying?” 

“There will never be any more outbreaks if 
I can prevent it, Mr. Burton. And,” he added 
confidently, “I can prevent it unless Foster 
runs wild, and I doubt if he has the courage for 
that.” 

“Well,” Scott said, as he rose to go, “I cer¬ 
tainly shall appreciate your help, and if I can 
ever be of any service to you, please let me 
know.” 

He left with the feeling that there was at 
least one man in the Wait tribe, and he mar¬ 
veled all the way home to think how this one 
individual had raised himself so far above all 
the others in spite of his surroundings. It 
made his own accomplishments seem small. 

Then he thought of the lonely old man on 
the other mountain, just as good a man and just 
as intelligent as Sewall. With the leadership 
in the hands of two such men there surely 
ought to be a reasonable way out. He deter- 
145 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


mined to try once more in spite of the old man’s 
request not to mention it. 

When he came to the Morgan cabin it was 
unnecessary to shout. Jarred was sitting on 
the front steps and rose to welcome him. He 
even came part way to the gate. 

“Well,” he said with a smile, “I see you found 
a way to keep the contract out of the hands of 
the feudists even if you had to thrash one of 
them to do it.” 

Scott laughed at the old man’s humor. “It 
does seem like a strange way to keep neutral,” 
he admitted, “but it was forced on me.” 

The smile left Jarred’s face and he looked at 
Scott gravely. “Yes, I know it was, and let 
me give you a warning. Keep your eyes open 
from now on. That fellow will shoot you in 
the back if he gets a chance.” 

“I believe he would,” Scott agreed, “but I 
was talking to one of the Waits this morning 
who seemed to be altogether different.” 

“Sewall?” Jarred asked quietly. 

“Yes, I heard that he was the brains of the 
party and I went up to see him.” 

Jarred nodded. “Yes, Sewall is different. If 
146 


HAS AN INTERVIEW WITH SEWALL 


all the Waits were like Sewall there would not 
be any feud. ,, 

Scott took advantage of the old man's calm 
mood. “You asked me not to say anything 
more about dropping the feud, but I want to 
say something about it just once more if you 
will let me.” 

Old Jarred’s face turned dark with sudden 
anger and Scott saw that he was going to be 
ordered out with little ceremony. But the 
order did not come. For a moment there was 
intense silence. Then the old man spoke, and 
his voice was quiet and rather sad. 

“I know what you would say, but go ahead.” 

Scott was so surprised that he could scarcely 
find the words now that he had the opportu¬ 
nity. Then he blurted out his words like a 
schoolboy. 

“It is only this, Mr. Morgan. I could not 
help thinking when I found out what sort of 
men you two were, what a pity it was for you 
to hold out as a matter of pride till one of you 
is killed, and Mr. Wait said that he would be 
glad to drop the whole thing if you would. 
Is there no way out of it?” 

147 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


Again Jarred’s face darkened but the wave of 
temper passed as the other had done. 

“I suppose that is the way it looks to a 
stranger,” he said slowly. “I suppose I seem 
like a stubborn old fool, all pride and nothing 
to back it up, keeping the whole country in 
arms for the fun of it.” 

“No, it's not quite as bad as that,” Scott in¬ 
terrupted quickly. 

“Maybe you would not say it in those 
words,” Jarred replied quietly, “but it must be 
about what you think. If any one else had 
tried to tell me what you have I would have 
ordered him off the place, but I like you and I 
am deep in your debt. I am going to tell you 
something that I have not mentioned before in 
fifteen years.” He paused as though it were 
a great effort to break his prolonged silence. 
Then he continued with enforced calm: 

“Foster Wait shot my daughter in cold blood 
just fifteen years ago, shot her just to keep the 
feud from dying out. He brought it to life 
again,” he concluded grimly. “Now it will live 
till one of us dies.” 

They both sat motionless for a minute star- 
148 


HAS AN INTERVIEW WITH SEWALL 


ing at the opposite mountain in silence. The 
old man was choked with his own suppressed 
fury. Scott was awed by the significance this 
statement gave to the conversation which he 
had overheard in the woods the day before. 
What if this cold-blooded murderer should 
shoot Vic this time to keep the feud alive? 

He knew that he dared say nothing more to 
Jarred. In fact, he could think of little more 
to say. “Thank you for your confidence in me, 
Mr. Morgan,” he said sincerely. “I promise 
not to mention the matter again.” 

Jarred did not seem to hear him. His eyes 
were still fixed on the opposite mountain, and 
when Scott looked back from the turn in the 
road he had not moved. 


CHAPTER XVII 


HOPWOOD TAKES A TRIP 

F OR the next few days Scott was too busy 
to think anything of Foster Wait's pos¬ 
sible revenge. In fact he almost forgot the 
feud altogether. The time for the return of 
bids had come and he had been awarded the 
contract. He had wired in his resignation to 
Washington and was once more in the thick 
of a logging job. 

He wired to Asheville where he had already 
made his preliminary arrangements, and in two 
days carloads of men, lumber and supplies be¬ 
gan to arrive. He had hired a friend of his old 
foreman to boss the job, another Scotchman, 
MacAndrews, who knew the country and the 
logging methods. Camp buildings of rough 
lumber sprang up like mushrooms in the val¬ 
ley near the railroad tracks, and the skid roads 
began to creep slowly up the mountain in the 
shallow draws toward the ridge. 

150 


HOPWOOD TAKES A TRIP 


The log chute was of particular interest to 
Scott because he had never seen one. In that 
particular place there was a small side valley, 
larger than most of the shallow draws, and the 
log chute was built along the little stream in 
the bottom of it. It consisted of two strings of 
logs laid side by side on short ties and hewed 
flat on the inside to form a rough trough. The 
logs were peeled and rolled into it far up on 
the mountain and gravity brought them down 
with the speed of a toboggan. 

Near the bottom of it they built a contrap¬ 
tion which they called a bear trap to break the 
speed of the logs before they came out on to the 
pile. It was a heavy log, one end of which was 
raised on a tripod over the chute while the 
heavy butt end rested in the chute. Scott never 
tired of watching the great logs rushing down 
at tremendous speed only to butt this big 
swinging log high in the air and slide gently 
out of the chute, their force all spent. 

Every now and then the silence of the valley 
was broken by a dull boom as the long saws 
chewed their way steadily through the great 
trunks and the majestic monarchs of the forest 
I5i 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


plunged headlong down the side of the moun¬ 
tain over which they had stood guard for cen¬ 
turies. And down the steep skid roads in the 
shallow draws the teams were hauling long 
trains of logs chained end to end. 

Everything was running as smoothly as a 
watch under MacAndrews’ efficient manage¬ 
ment, and Scott would have been serenely 
happy but for one thing. He had not seen 
Hopwood for three weeks. Not since the first 
day of his return from Washington. And he 
had come to rely on Hopwood more than he 
realized. There was no one else who could 
keep him posted. The agent told him what 
little he heard, and he visited old man Sanders 
one evening. But without Hopwood they were 
almost as much in the dark as he was. 

One evening Sewall came to see him at the 
hotel which was considered neutral ground. 
He, too, was worrying about Hopwood. 

“So you have not seen him, either/' he said, 
as he was preparing to leave. “I do not know 
what to make of it. He never disappeared this 
way before. I have searched for him every¬ 
where on this side of the mountain but no one 
152 


HOPWOOD TAKES A TRIP 


has seen him. No one has seen him on the 
other side.” 

“Have you any suspicions about it?” Scott 
asked. 

Sewall hesitated a moment. “He seems to 
have taken quite a shine to you and I thought 
maybe you had sent him on an errand some¬ 
where. I wanted to find out before I said any¬ 
thing else.” 

“Now what are you going to do?” Scott 
asked anxiously. 

Again Sewall hesitated. 

“This is not mere curiosity on my part,” 
Scott added. “I look upon Hopwood as a good 
friend of mine, and I am as anxious to find him 
as you are. If you have any theory and I can 
do anything to help I want to do it.” 

Sewall still hesitated. “I don’t see how you 
can help me just now and I have not told any 
one my suspicions, but if you are a friend of his 
I might as well tell you what I am thinking. 
I can’t lower your opinion of Foster much. I 
have no basis for my suspicions, but I can’t help 
wondering if Foster has anything to do with it. 
He knows that Hopwood does not like him and 
153 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


he may have got him out of the way to keep 
him from working against him. I suppose you 
know how Hopwood came to be crazy ?” 

Scott nodded. “I heard about it,” he said. 
“But surely Foster would not do him any far¬ 
ther injury when he is already responsible for 
that.” 

“Foster is desperate now,” Sewall replied, 
“and he would do anything. By the way, you 
want to keep on your guard yourself. He'll 
never forgive you for thrashing him.” 

“I am watching him the best I can,” Scott 
replied. “I wish you would let me know what 
you find out about Hopwood, and I'll send him 
right to you if I find him.” 

Sewall left and Scott sat pondering over the 
depths of Foster's villainy. It did not seem 
possible that any one could do such a thing as 
that in cold blood, or that a man who had such 
a reputation could be left at large. He glanced 
up impatiently and saw Hopwood sitting on a 
chair near the door. 

“Why, Hopwood,” Scott exclaimed as he 
jumped forward joyously to greet him, “where 
have you been all this time?” 

154 


HOPWOOD TAKES A TRIP 


Hopwood’s face beamed with pleasure as he 
recognized the sincerity of Scott’s greeting, 
and he spread out his hands in his old charac¬ 
teristic gesture. 

“Sewall was just here looking for you. He 
has searched all that side of the mountain, and 
I have been inquiring for you on this side. 
You’ve had us worried.” 

“I saw him,” Hopwood replied laconically. 

“Did you tell him where you had been?” 

“No,” Hopwood said, “he did not see me.” 

“You should have spoken to him, Hopwood. 
He is putting in all his time looking for you.” 

“I did not know that he cared that much 
about me,” Hopwood replied rather wistfully. 
“I’ll go right to him.” 

“You should,” Scott urged him earnestly, 
“for he cares a great deal about you, and so do 
I. You ought not to scare us that way.” 

Hopwood looked a little hurt. “I was trying 
to do something for you. That was why I 
went away.” 

“For me!” Scott exclaimed in astonishment. 
“How is that?” 

“Foster will shoot you if he gets a chance,” 
155 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


Hopwood replied confidently. “I went over to 
the county seat to try to get him arrested. If 
he was in }ail it would be safer around here. 
It will never be safe while he is here.” 

“But you can’t get a man arrested for what 
you think he is going to do, Hopwood,” Scott 
remonstrated. 

“No, not for what he has done, either,” Hop- 
wood replied bitterly. “He killed a little girl 
here years ago, Jarred’s daughter. It was not 
a fight, just plain murder. It was for that I 
wanted them to arrest him.” 

Scott looked at him wonderingly. “What 
did they say?” 

“They laughed at me,” Hopwood replied 
angrily. “Said they could not arrest any one 
on the word of a crazy man.” 

“Did you have on your iron hat?” Scott 
asked, a little amused in spite of himself. 

A rare smile came over Hopwood’s face. 
“There’s where I made my mistake,” he re¬ 
plied. “I forgot that I had it on.” 

“Why do you wear it, Hopwood?” Scott 
asked, his curiosity getting the better of him. 

Hopwood looked at him thoughtfully. “I’ll 
156 


HOPWOOD TAKES A TRIP 


tell you some day. Pm not quite ready yet. 
What did Sewall think ?” he asked shrewdly. 

“He thought that I might have sent you on 
an errand or that Foster might have done 
something to you.” 

An angry scowl spread over Hopwood’s 
brow. It was the first time Scott had ever seen 
such an expression there. “Foster will never 
do anything to me. If I did not have more 
sense than they think I have, it would be I who 
would do something to Foster.” It did not 
sound to Scott much like the speech of a half¬ 
wit. 

“Well, you’d better go see Sewall now. It 
will relieve his mind.” 

Hopwood started for the door without com¬ 
ment. 

Scott had not expected him to go so suddenly 
and called after him, “I certainly appreciate 
what you tried to do for me, Hopwood, and I 
would like to see you to-morrow if you get a 
chance. I have not had any news since you 
left.” 

It was pathetic to see how grateful Hopwood 
was for any appreciation. He stopped a mo- 
157 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


ment in confusion. ‘Til be here,” he blurted 
with evident embarrassment and hurried out. 

“He may be crazy,” Scott thought, “but if 
he is, it is a pity that there are not more crazy 
people in the world. If it were not for that 
iron hat I would not believe it for a minute.” 


CHAPTER XVIII 
DICK TURNS GENTLEMAN 

T HESE repeated warnings against Foster 
Wait began to get on Scott's nerves. 
And yet there was very little that he could do 
to protect himself. He never carried a gun, 
and felt that he was safer without one. He was 
obliged to travel around over the forest con¬ 
tinuously inspecting the logging job, and he 
could not devote all his time to watching for 
Foster Wait. He tried to forget it and go about 
his business as though Foster did not exist but 
he could not help thinking how many opportu¬ 
nities there were for this man to shoot him 
down from ambush, and it made him nervous. 
If Foster would only do something and show 
his hand, he could do something himself but 
till then he could only wait. 

A few days later something happened which 
put him more than ever on his guard. He was 
up near the ridge where they were making up 
159 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


the trains of logs for the skid teams. There 
was an enormous red-oak log forty-five inches 
in diameter lying in the skid road, and Jimmy 
Barnes, Scott’s best teamster, was waiting 
there with a team of large blacks ready to take 
it down. This particular team was untrained 
and very nervous. They had been assigned to 
Jimmy because he was the only teamster in 
camp who was willing and able to handle them. 

This one big oak log was in itself heavy 
enough for a load, but they never hauled a 
single log for fear it would roll sideways and 
become unmanageable. They always fastened 
a small log on behind to serve as a rudder. 
Jimmy was waiting for them to attach the 
small log. His team was getting so restless 
at the delay that he drove them around and 
hooked the heavy logging tongs to the end of 
the oak log. Not that he had any idea of try¬ 
ing to take it down alone, but just to give the 
team something to do and stop them from fret¬ 
ting. 

He had hardly straightened up from hook¬ 
ing on the tongs when the bushes beside the 
team were burst apart with a great commotion 
160 


DICK TURNS GENTLEMAN 


and Foster Wait jumped down the low bank 
into the skid road. 

The team made one wild lunge which almost 
jerked Jimmy off his feet and stopped trem¬ 
bling. The plunge turned the great log side¬ 
ways on the slope, and it balanced uncertainly 
for a second on the stub of a small bush. 
Jimmy saw his chance, shouted wildly to the 
team and slapped them with the lines. If he 
could give that log another jerk before it 
started to roll he might be able to straighten it 
out. But the team balked. They trembled and 
jerked nervously but they refused to move, in 
spite of Jimmy’s efforts. 

Slowly the stub was bent down and the six- 
ton log was free. It rolled slowly down on to 
the horses. It had not yet gathered much mo¬ 
mentum, but if it had been a smaller log it 
would have broken their legs. As it was, it 
just shoved their hind legs out from under 
them and they suddenly found themselves sit¬ 
ting on the revolving log with the heavy tongs 
and the logging chains clanking beside them at 
every turn of the log. 

It was too much for any team to bear. For 
161 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


a few yards they sat on that grinding log and 
ran with their front feet. Then with one 
mighty, terrified effort they succeeded in jump¬ 
ing clear of the log and plunged desperately 
down the skid road. But the tongs still held, 
and the big log rolled sullenly from side to 
side and held them back. Jimmy tried desper¬ 
ately to stay by his team, but an unexpected 
roll of the log threw him into the brush, the 
lines were jerked out of his hands and the team 
was completely out of control. The next in¬ 
stant the log struck a rock, the tongs pulled 
loose, and the freed team tore wildly down the 
steep skid road at breakneck speed. 

Scott took his eyes from the rapidly disap¬ 
pearing team long enough to take a glance at 
Foster and he felt sure that he saw a gleam of 
satisfaction on his face. When the team was 
out of sight and Jimmy had dug himself out of 
the brush Foster suddenly found himself the 
object of half a dozen pairs of angry eyes. He 
was frightened by the ugly looks of these men, 
but he succeeded in holding himself in check 
long enough to throw a bluff. 

“Some frisky team,” he remarked genially. 

162 


DICK TURNS GENTLEMAN 

“Any of you-all see a hound dog go by this 
way ?” 

“I seen one,” MacAndrews exclaimed with 
an angry glare, “but he ain’t gone by yet.” 

The others snorted their amusement and 
Foster turned red. “Eve lost mine,” he mum¬ 
bled as he apologetically backed into the brush. 

“Better keep him away from here,” Mac 
shouted after him. “We’ll tie a can on him 
pretty quick.” 

Before Foster succeeded in breaking through 
the brush beside the road his flush had changed 
to a deadly pallor. 

“Who is that cuss?” MacAndrews de¬ 
manded with a vicious snap of his jaws. 

“That is Foster Wait,” Scott said. 

“Well, he is hanging around here more than 
is good for his health. He scared that team on 
purpose.” 

“I thought so, too,” Scott exclaimed, and he 
added a little anxiously, “did you say he had 
been around here before?” 

“Turns up somewhere around the job almost 
every day. He’ll come once too often some 
day. I expect that team is ruined.” 

163 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 

Scott had been so absorbed in Foster Wait 
that he had forgotten the team for a moment. 
Now he found that Jimmy had run down the 
mountain in search of them, and he followed 
as fast as he could run. 

Was Foster hanging around the logging 
operation trying to get a chance at him or was 
he up to some other mischief? It did not seem 
likely that he was looking for him. Why 
should he come there where there were so 
many people when he could so very easily catch 
him out in the woods alone? No, he must be 
up to something else. And Scott determined 
that he would make it his business to find out 
what it was as soon as possible. 

He watched all along the road for traces of 
the runaway team. At each turn in the road 
he expected to find them piled up against a tree 
or in the ditch, but although the road was badly 
scratched up in places as though they had 
stumbled or slipped badly they had evidently 
made it. 

Some of the men whom he passed told him 
that the team had passed safely at that point 
and was going strong. When he came in sight 
164 


DICK TURNS GENTLEMAN 


of the landing beside the railroad track he spied 
the big blacks standing in a little bunch of men. 
Jimmy was rubbing them down and trying to 
soothe their ruffled nerves. 

They were pretty well lathered up from the 
long run, and one of them had an ugly cut in 
his side but otherwise they seemed to be all 
right. They had left the road on the turn by 
the skidway and had run between two trees. 
The space had not been wide enough for the 
double-tree, and the sudden jerk had thrown 
one of the horses. Before they could untangle 
themselves from the broken harness the men 
had caught them. 

“Better take them to the barn, Jimmy,” Scott 
said, when he had looked them over carefully 
and noticed their violently heaving flanks and 
trembling legs. 

“Ell take them over and doctor that cut and 
the harness,” Jimmy replied, “but Til have 
them out after lunch. If they had a run like 
that every day for a couple of weeks they might 
get down to where a fellow could handle them.” 
It was the second time they had run away with 
Jimmy, and he was getting a little peevish. He 

165 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


was afraid that they might endanger his repu¬ 
tation as the best teamster in the mountains. 

Scott knew what was the matter. “Never 
mind, Jimmy, you are doing fine. Nobody else 
could handle them at all. Once you have 
trained them they will be the best team on the 
job.” 

“They are that now,” Jimmy replied stoutly. 
“They have the record for coming down that 
mountain, anyway. By the way, did you get 
that guy who scared them?” 

“No, we hadn’t any proof that he did it on 
purpose so we let him go.” 

“I don’t need any proof,” Jimmy retorted 
angrily. “That’s the third time he’s tried it, 
and if I ever catch him around here again I’m 
going to lose a peavey in him.” 

Scott did not say anything, but he made a 
mental note of what Jimmy said about it being 
Foster’s third attempt to scare the big black 
team. It was the first link in the chain of evi¬ 
dence he intended to collect against him. 

As long as he was down in the valley and it 
was so near noon Scott decided to go in to 
dinner. He was still staying at the hotel, not 
166 


DICK TURNS GENTLEMAN 


because he liked it, but it enabled him to keep 
in touch with local gossip through the station 
agent and he thought it might give him a bet¬ 
ter chance to see Hopwood. He was doubtful 
whether it would be a good thing for Hopwood 
to come around camp with that strange iron 
hat. The men would undoubtedly tease him, 
and he did not know how Hopwood would take 
it. 

As he passed the bunk house he heard some 
one singing inside. It was not usual for any 
one to be in the bunk house at that time of day, 
unless it was the bull cook, and it did not sound 
like him. Scott stepped in and found one of 
the swampers sprawled on a bench and croon¬ 
ing a maudlin song. His first thought was that 
the man might have been hurt in the runaway, 
but certainly some one would have mentioned 
it if he had. 

“Sick, Dick?” Scott asked. 

The man looked at him with bleary eyes and 
arose with a ludicrous attempt at dignity. 
Scott saw at once that the man was drunk. 

“No, shur,” the man replied with an elab¬ 
orate bow which almost upset him. 

167 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


“Then why aren’t you at work?” Scott asked 
sharply. 

“Becaush I don’t have to work for anybody,” 
Dick replied with another deep bow which 
brought him unexpectedly to his hands and 
knees on the bench in front of him. “I’m a 
gentleman, I am,” he added as he straightened 
himself with difficulty. 

Scott looked at him with disgust. “When 
Mac comes in tell him I said to give you your 
time,” he exclaimed impatiently and turned to 
the door. 

“Time,” Dick exclaimed. “Give me my 
time. I’ve got all the time there is. I’m a gen¬ 
tleman, I tell you.” 

Scott turned back with a new thought. 
“Where did you get that stuff?” he asked 
sternly. 

Dick winked at him slowly and shook his 
head. “A gentleman would never tell,” he re¬ 
plied knowingly. 

Scott slammed the door in disgust and left 
him still explaining his gentility to the empty 
room. 

Here was another thing he had to investi¬ 
gate. 


168 


CHAPTER XIX 


HOPWOOD THROWS AWAY HIS IRON HAT 

A FTER dinner Scott stopped at the bunk 
-*■ -*■ house to see that his orders were carried 
out in regard to Dick. Dick had not delivered 
the message, but he did not have to. MacAn- 
drews had spotted him shortly after Scott had 
discovered him and had started him down the 
track before dinner. 

Scott decided to devote the afternoon to col¬ 
lecting news from his friends in the hope that 
he could find out something which would 
throw some light on Foster’s actions. The 
station agent had heard nothing and he went 
up to see old man Sanders. The old man 
greeted him with his usual cordiality. 

“Come in, come in,” he said. “I hear you 
have beaten up the ogre and are succeeding in 
getting out the timber without his assistance. 
How did you do it?” 

Scott sat down in the proffered chair a little 
169 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


wearily. “Every one seems to be more inter¬ 
ested in my fighting ability than in anything 
else. It's a fine reputation for a man who 
started out to be an angel of peace. Things are 
going pretty well but there is something about 
it I do not like. Foster Wait is hanging around 
the logging operation all the time, and I can’t 
find out what he is up to. Haven’t heard any¬ 
thing about it, have you?” 

Mr. Sanders shook his head. “No,” he re¬ 
plied, “I have not heard anything at all. Hop- 
wood seems to have deserted me, and Vic has 
not been down the mountain since the night 
you took her home. I can’t get around much 
myself and when those two desert me I don’t 
know much.” 

“I have not seen Hopwood for three or four 
days myself,” Scott said. “Do you suppose he 
has disappeared again?” 

“It is hard to tell what he is up to. The last 
time I saw him he was coming up the road 
there, but when he saw me he slipped into the 
woods. It was not like him. He never avoided 
me before.” 

Scott saw that there was nothing to be 
170 


THROWS AWAY HIS IRON HAT 


learned from Mr. Sanders and he rose to go. 
“Maybe he was just in a hurry and did not want 
to be delayed. He seems to be very busy on 
some scheme of his own” 

“Poor fellow!” the old man sighed, “a lot of 
good his schemes will ever do anybody, but I 
suppose it gives him something to do.” 

Scott turned back from the gate. “Just what 
do you think of Hopwood, Mr. Sanders?” 

Mr. Sanders looked at him with a little sur¬ 
prise. “I thought I told you about him. He 
has never been right since Foster hit him in the 
head years ago.” 

“Yes, I know,” Scott interrupted. “You told 
me about that, but I have been wondering a 
good deal lately whether he is really as crazy 
as people think.” 

Mr. Sanders shook his head sadly. “I wish 
you were right but there is no chance. I have 
known him too long.” 

“Well, I think I’ll take a look for him, any¬ 
way. I like him, whatever he is.” 

Scott crossed the valley and took the road 
up the other slope towards Sewall Wait’s 
cabin. There were several other cabins along 
171 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


the road and as Scott approached one of them 
he saw a man come out of the gate, stand un¬ 
certainly for a minute and go back. The funny 
part of it was that he thought he recognized 
Dick, the man who had been fired from the 
camp that morning, but the distance was too 
great to be sure of it, and when he passed the 
cabin there was no one in sight. There sel¬ 
dom was any one in sight at any of these cabins. 
The children all ran away and hid at the ap¬ 
proach of a stranger. Sometimes he caught a 
glimpse of some one, peeping out of the corner 
of a window, but that was all. It always made 
him feel uneasy to go by one of them. 

Sewall was home and glad to see him. Scott 
told him what Foster had done in the morning 
and how he was continually hanging around 
the camp. 

Sewall only shook his head doubtfully. “I 
don’t know what it is, but he is up to some¬ 
thing. He has avoided me for a month. I 
don’t like the way he is chumming with some 
of the wilder of the young fellows. My boys 
don’t like him any better than I do, and they 
have tried to find out what he is doing but they 
172 


THROWS AWAY HIS IRON HAT 


can’t. I know his game but I can’t figure out 
his next move.” 

“Just what is his game?” Scott asked 
anxiously. 

“He knows that the family has pretty much 
lost confidence in him as a leader, and he thinks 
that if he starts some trouble they will have to 
support him. That much is clear enough, but 
I can’t see how he can gain anything by jim- 
ming your logging job.” 

“I thought that was probably just revenge 
for the thrashing I gave him,” Scott said. “If 
that’s all it is I am not worried, for he can’t do 
very much harm, but I was afraid there might 
be something else back of it.” 

Sewall shook his head. “He is too big a 
coward to risk very much just for revenge. To 
shoot you in the back would be more like his 
methods. He beat up poor Hopwood the other 
day. That’s about his size,” he added bitterly. 

“That is what I really came up for,” Scott 
exclaimed quickly. “To find out whether you 
knew anything about Hopwood. I have not 
seen him for three or four days.” 

“I saw him this morning. Foster went after 
173 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


him with a club day before yesterday, and if it 
had not been for that old iron hat I think he 
would have killed him/ 

“The big bully. What was it about ?” Scott 
asked eagerly 

“He would not tell me, but I thought from 
the way he talked that it had something to do 
with you.” 

“Where is he?” Scott asked. If Hopwood 
had taken up his fight he wanted to know what 
it was so that he could take it up himself. 

“He is up in his cabin. I tried to bring him 
down here, but he would not come. He's funny 
that way. I have never known him to sleep in 
anybody else's cabin. If he can't get home he 
sleeps out-of-doors.” 

“Where is his cabin?” Scott asked. “I must 
go and see him.” 

Sewall hesitated. “He does not usually like 
to have people come to his cabin.” 

“But can't you see that if he got into this 
trouble on my account I must see him at once.” 

“Well,” Sewall admitted reluctantly. “I 
reckon he would not mind seeing you. His 
cabin is away up there on top of Jones' Knob. 
174 


THROWS AWAY HIS IRON HAT 

The trail turns off this road about a half mile 
above here. It’s not very plain but I guess you 
can find it.” 

Scott took a hasty leave of Sewall and 
started in search of the trail. Sewall told the 
truth when he said that it was not very plain. 
Scott looked for it closely, but he passed it and 
had to come back in his search. He finally 
found a faint trace and followed it up over little 
ridges and down into the draws for an hour, 
always drawing a little closer to the peak. 
When he came out in the little flat opening on 
the top there was no cabin to be seen. He had 
never been there before but he knew that this 
was Jones’ Knob, and yet there was no cabin. 

Scott looked carefully around him and there 
on the edge of the clearing he discovered a tiny 
cabin nestled back in the edge of the spruce 
thicket. He hurried over to it and looked 
eagerly in the open door. There was a man 
lying on the bed, but at first Scott did not rec¬ 
ognize him as Hopwood till he saw the iron hat 
lying on his chest. He appeared to be asleep. 

It was the first time Scott had ever seen Hop- 
wood without his iron hat, and he took the 
175 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


opportunity to study him carefully. He was 
amazed at the high, well-formed forehead and 
fine features. The blank expression which he 
always wore when awake was entirely gone 
now. He seemed to feel that some one was 
staring at him and moved uneasily. 

As Scott did not want Hopwood to discover 
him there and think that he had been spying 
on him he knocked softly. 

Hopwood sat up suddenly at the first tap and 
hurriedly put on his iron hat. He was very 
much displeased at the intrusion, but when he 
saw who it was a radiant smile chased away 
his frown. Nor did the usual blank expression 
take its accustomed place. 

“I went up to see if Sewall knew anything 
about you,” Scott explained, “and he told me 
that you were hurt.” 

Hopwood’s face beamed when he heard that 
Scott had come in search of him, but a shadow 
of hatred passed over it when his injury was 
mentioned. It seemed as though a struggle 
were going on within him. The next instant he 
was as calm as usual. 

“I am glad you found me,” he said simply. 
176 


THROWS AWAY HIS IRON HAT 


“Is it true as Sewall said that you were hurt 
on my account ?” 

Hopwood hesitated. “Sewall does not know 
why I was hurt,” he answered evasively. 

“But can't you see, Hopwood, that if it had 
anything* to do with me, I ought to know about 
it?” 

Still Hopwood was silent. 

“Foster has been acting queerly,” Scott con¬ 
tinued. “He has been hanging around the 
camp all the time and this morning he scared 
one of the teams and almost ruined it. I am 
almost sure that he did it on purpose.” 

“He did,” Hopwood exclaimed angrily. 
“That was what my trouble was all about. He 
wanted me to set fire to the camps.” 

Scott gasped in astonishment. He had 
rather expected Foster to attempt some per¬ 
sonal revenge but it had never occurred to him 
that his cowardice would ever drive him to use 
such an expedient as that. It was a move too 
degraded for Scott to understand. 

“When I refused,” Hopwood continued, “he 
tried to kill me for fear I would tell on him.” 

Scott was silent a moment. “I don't sup- 
177 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


pose that will prevent him from getting some¬ 
body else to do it,” he said gloomily. 

“I doubt it,” Hopwood said. “If it burns 
now, everybody will know who did it.” 

“Could we have him arrested for assault?” 
Scott asked. 

Hopwood shook his head. “There were no 
witnesses except his own family and they 
would swear to anything.” 

“Did he hurt you badly, Hopwood?” 

“No,” Hopwood answered, “not very, but if 
it had not been for my iron hat he would have 
killed me. He hammered me with a heavy 
club, bruised my shoulders and cut my face. 
Fm all right now.” 

Scott glanced questioningly at the bed. 

“Oh, I don’t have to stay there,” Hopwood 
replied with a laugh. “But since he knocked 
me crazy the first time I am always careful 
when I get hit on the head.” 

Certainly that did not sound like the talk of 
a crazy man, but Scott did not question him. 

“Is there anything I can do for you, Hop- 
wood?” 

“Oh, no!” Hopwood exclaimed. “Fm all 
178 


THROWS AWAY HIS IRON HAT 


right. Won’t you stay and have supper with 
me?” he asked bashfully. 

“I wish I could,” Scott said, “but there are 
some things I have to attend to down at the 
camp. I hope I can some day. This is a beau¬ 
tiful place.” 

Hopwood came to the door with him, and 
they stood for a moment looking in silence at 
the beautiful scene before them, or rather be¬ 
low them. 

Jones’ Knob was the highest peak in that 
section, and they looked down upon a number 
of smaller mountains. The sun, setting rap¬ 
idly over the western ridge, sent ever changing 
shadows over the eastern slopes. The evening 
mists were beginning to fill the valleys like a 
rising tide, and even as they watched one of the 
lower peaks was submerged in the sea of white. 

Scott roused himself. “It will be dark in the 
valley before I get down there if I don’t hurry. 
Take care of yourself, Hopwood.” 

“I’ll be down to-morrow,” Hopwood replied 
confidently, and as Scott disappeared down the 
winding trail he threw his iron hat far down 
the side of the mountain. 

179 


CHAPTER XX 


AN ATTEMPT AT ARSON 

A S Scott had predicted, it grew dark in the 
- valleys long before he reached home, and 
he lost the trail on the open ridge. He did not 
worry because he knew that if he went down¬ 
hill he would soon come out on a road some¬ 
where, but he was impatient of delay. He was 
anxious to get back to the camps since he had 
heard of Foster’s proposal to burn them up. 
Maybe he was trying it again now. 

It was awkward work going through the 
dense woods and brush in the dark, but as he 
expected it was not so very long before he came 
out into a road. He did not recognize the road 
at first but he knew that he must turn to the 
left it he would find the road up which he had 
come. 

About a half a mile further down he came 
upon an unusually large house and recognized 
it instantly as Foster Wait’s. There was a 
180 


AN ATTEMPT AT ARSON 


light in the room downstairs but the shades 
were drawn down tight. Scott was looking 
curiously at the house as he walked by when 
two silhouettes suddenly appeared on the white 
shade. He was not surprised to recognize one 
of them as Foster, but when he recognized the 
other he stopped short and almost cried aloud. 
It was Dick. 

Ordinarily Scott would have considered it 
dishonorable to eavesdrop, but he felt sure that 
the meeting of these two men had something 
to do with him. What better would Foster 
want than to get hold of a drunken man who 
was disgruntled over his treatment at the 
camp! Maybe that was his purpose in hanging 
around there. 

Under the circumstances Scott had no 
scruples about attempting to hear the conver¬ 
sation. He determined to crawl up to the win¬ 
dow and listen. Hardly had he taken a step 
in that direction when the loud baying of a 
hound told him that it was hopeless. As much 
as he wanted to hear that conversation he beat 
a hasty retreat. And he was none too soon. 
The echo of the dog's bark had hardly died 
181 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


away when he heard the door open and a voice 
roughly scolding the hound. 

Scott hurried down the road while his im¬ 
agination ran riot in vain attempts to solve 
Foster’s plans. Foster Wait was not the man 
to take in a drunken lumberjack unless he in¬ 
tended to make use of him, and Scott felt sure 
that those plans had something to do with him. 
At one time he thought of going to Sewall for 
help, but his pride prevented him. He had 
protected himself before from smarter men 
than Foster and he would do it again. 

It was long after supper time when Scott 
reached the camp; in fact, many of the men had 
already gone to bed. Fortunately the cook was 
up making bread, and he went into the cook 
shack to get a hand-out. Scott was a favorite 
with all the crew, and when the cook saw who 
it was he denied himself the grouch he usually 
enjoyed when any one intruded into his castle, 
and hunted up some coffee, ham, doughnuts 
and cookies—the unvarying lumberjack hand¬ 
out—as though he enjoyed it. 

Scott was absorbed in his own thoughts and 
let the cook do most of the talking, but as he 
182 


AN ATTEMPT AT ARSON 


was leaving a thought occurred to him. “By 
the way, Ben, if Dick should come back here 
for a hand-out any time, keep him here and 
send for me. I want to talk to him. ,, 

He went out through the bunk house and 
motioned to Mac to follow him. When the 
foreman came out he led him over to a log a 
little way from the bunk house and sat down. 

“Mac, I have seen and heard a couple of 
things to-day which have me pretty badly 
worried. ,, 

Mac looked at him keenly in the dim star¬ 
light. “I’ll bet it’s got something to do with 
that guy who scared the team this morning.” 

“You guessed right the first time. ,, 

“I knew it,” Mac exclaimed. “Pve been 
thinking about him all day. What is he up to 
now?” 

“Day before yesterday he tried to get a man 
to set fire to these camps.” 

“Set fire to ’em!” Mac almost shouted. “The 
dirty scoundrel!” 

“And to-night,” Scott continued, “I came by 
his house and happened to see him talking to 
the man you fired this morning.” 

183 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


Mac gave an angry snort of disgust. “That’s 
a fine howdy-do. A man who wants to find 
somebody to burn down the camp and a 
drunken lumberjack I fired this morning. 
Couldn’t find a better combination than that 
in all North Carolina.” 

“I came right on down here to warn you, be¬ 
cause I thought you would want to put on a 
guard,” Scott said. 

“Put on a guard nothing,” Mac exclaimed 
contemptuously. “We’ll go up there and clean 
them out. The boys would enjoy it and I can 
have the crew out in ten minutes.” 

“I know the men could do it, Mac, and would 
probably enjoy it, but it would stir up too much 
of a row. If it were just those two it might be 
all right, but he is a leader of a big gang and we 
would have to fight all the people on that side 
of the mountain.” 

“Well, we can do that, too,” Mac answered 
doggedly. “Nobody ever burned my camps yet 
and nobody’s going to.” 

“Just the same,” Scott insisted, “we’re not 
going to fight that gang. We might do them 
up all right, but there would not be much log- 
184 


AN ATTEMPT AT ARSON 


ging done around here for the next month or 
two, and Fm here to get those logs out.” 

Mac sat for a while in sullen silence. “Well, 
what are you going to do then, let them burn 
you up?” 

“No,” Scott cried impatiently. “I have no 
more notion of burning up than you have, and 
if you cannot find a man here to keep watch at 
night Til do it myself.” 

Again Mac sat for a while in silence. His 
stubborn Scotch blood was slow to give in. 
The last voices had died away in the bunk 
house and Ben had finished his work in the 
cook shack. There was not a sound save an 
occasional snore and the scream of an owl far 
up on the mountain. 

Mac finally surrendered as he had known he 
would from the first, and was about to speak 
when a crackling of twigs in the forest behind 
them brought them both bolt upright with 
nerves a-tingle and eyes and ears straining. 
They could see nothing, but it was evident that 
some one was making his way slowly through 
the woods towards the bunk house and was 
making a great deal of noise doing it. 

185 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


“If that fellow is sneaking up on us, he must 
think we’re dead,” Mac whispered. 

There was a loud crash as though some one 
had fallen over a log. They heard some mum¬ 
bling but could not distinguish the words. 
After a few seconds of silence the advance on 
the bunk house began again. A man passed 
slowly within ten feet of them and made his 
slow way to the side of the bunk house. They 
could hear him scraping together dead leaves 
and brush. 

Scott and Mac crept silently up to where 
they could see what he was doing, and Scott 
was not at all surprised to recognize Dick. He 
had scraped together a big pile of leaves and 
heaped them against the side of the bunk house. 
Scott gathered himself for a spring as he saw 
him fumbling in his pocket for a match to set 
fire to the leaves. 

But instead of taking out a match Dick 
stuck both hands in his pockets and swayed 
back and forth staring curiously at the bunk 
house. 

“Can’t burn that,” he mumbled. “Wouldn’t 
be gentlemanly to burn the bunk house with 
186 


AN ATTEMPT AT ARSON 


all those men in it. Can’t get ’em out with¬ 
out wakin’ ’em up.” 

He scratched his head in perplexity for a 
minute and then started toward the barn. 
Scott punched Mac in the ribs and they both 
followed. At the barn Dick repeated the per¬ 
formance. When his leaves were all piled he 
remembered the horses. Again he stopped 
and scratched his head. “No gentleman would 
burn a horse,” he mumbled. 

For a moment he stared helplessly about 
him. Then he seemed to get an idea. He made 
his way uncertainly to the door of the barn and 
disappeared inside. They watched to see that 
he did not strike a match, but did not interfere 
with him. After a considerable time he stum¬ 
bled out leading two sleepy horses. He turned 
them loose outside and went back for two 
more. The first pair, finding themselves free 
and having no desire to go to work at that time 
of the night went back into the barn. Dick 
stopped and looked at them wonderingly as he 
led out two more. 

Scott and Mac were almost in hysterics. 
“Let me handle him,” Scott whispered. 

187 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


“Hello, Dick!” Scott exclaimed, suddenly, 
“what are you doing out here at this time of 
night?” 

Dick dropped the halters of the horses he 
was leading and braced himself as though he 
expected somebody to jump on him. 

“Why don’t you come inside and go to bed? 
It’s late,” Scott continued. 

Dick relaxed when he saw he was in no im¬ 
mediate danger of attack, and winked at them 
knowingly. “Didn’t you give me my time?” he 
asked. 

“Give you your time!” Scott exclaimed. 
“Certainly we gave you your time, but you 
were drunk then. You’re sober now. Why 
don’t you let Foster Wait get somebody else to 
do his dirty work for him? No gentleman 
would want to burn another man’s buildings.” 

Dick looked at him uncertainly for a minute 
and then straightened up with painful dignity. 

“That’s right,” he said. “That’s what I was 
going to tell him. No gentleman would burn a 
horse.” 

“Of course not,” Scott agreed. “Come on 


188 


AN ATTEMPT AT ARSON 


He took Dick by the arm and led him into 
the bunk house. “There’s your bunk. Crawl 
in.” 

Dick obeyed without a word but as he rolled 
over they heard him mumble, “I’ll show him 
he can’t give me an ungentlemanly job.” 

“Going to call up the sheriff?” Mac asked 
when they were outside. 

“No,” Scott replied emphatically. “Arrest 
him, and when he gets out he’ll join Foster 
again. Put him to work in the morning and 
he’ll be all right.” 

“Reckon you’re right,” Mac admitted. 
“Good night.” 


CHAPTER XXI 
SCOTT FINDS THE STILL 


D ICK went cheerfully to work with the 
other men in the morning and seemed to 
have forgotten all his troubles. Mac put on a 
guard to watch the buildings at night and he 
kept a sharp lookout for Foster in the day¬ 
time, but that gentleman seemed to have real¬ 
ized his danger and kept out of sight. 

Scott had begun to think that Foster must 
have left the country when he spied him one 
day sneaking through the woods a short dis¬ 
tance from the camp. But Foster evidently 
saw him and immediately disappeared in the 
brush. 

Everything at the camp was in good working 
order now. The four felling crews were hard 
at it, each one working up a narrow strip from 
the valley to the ridge. Their progress was 
marked by the steady booming of the falling 
trees. The skid teams followed each other in 
190 


SCOTT FINDS THE STILL 

an almost continuous procession with their 
train of logs, and the big steam jammer loaded 
them on to the cars on the siding as fast as they 
came down. 

Over in the main draw other felling crews 
were cutting logs for the chute and they were 
popping down so steadily that the old bear trap 
was playing a regular tune. 

Scott used to stand on the railroad track or 
the hotel porch and look up at the slope with 
pride. For he had marked that timber for cut¬ 
ting when he was still supervisor and he had 
done it well. Instead of the barren, blackened 
hillside which the logger usually leaves behind 
him there was enough small timber left stand¬ 
ing to make it look almost like a virgin forest. 
Some one could log there again before so very 
many years. 

It looked as though the feud were practically 
dead. Sewall could report no new develop¬ 
ments. Hopwood had not shown up with any 
news for a long time, not since Scott had visited 
him in his cabin, but he had sent him word 
occasionally by Sewall. Scott thought that he 
was avoiding the camps. 

191 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


One day Scott’s peace was rudely shattered. 
He had stayed at home that morning to finish 
up some correspondence. Just before noon 
MacAndrews came bursting into the room. 
He was so mad that there were tears in his 
eyes and he was almost inarticulate. He strode 
up and down the full length of the room twice, 
waving his arms wildly, before he could get a 
word out of himself. 

Scott was pale with apprehension. “What 
under the sun is the matter, Mac?” he asked 
anxiously. 

“Drunk,” Mac shouted savagely. “The 
whole blame crew’s drunk.” 

“Drunk?” Scott echoed in his astonishment, 
while Mac continued to walk the floor. 

“Dead drunk,” Mac repeated in disgust. “In 
the middle of the morning, and not a lick of 
work to be got out of any of them.” 

“Where did they get it?” Scott asked, for 
both he and Mac had exerted every possible 
effort to keep whisky out of the camp. 

“Yes,” M^ac roared, “that is the question. 
Where did they get it? I’ve asked them all 
and beaten up half of them and not a word have 
192 


SCOTT FINDS THE STILL 


I got out of any one. Show me the man who 
brought it in, that’s all I ask.” 

Suddenly a new thought occurred to Scott. 
“Where are they, Mac?” 

“Lying all over the woods.” 

“I thought so. Round them up into the bunk 
house, Mac. This is something that I think I 
can solve.” 

“You mean to say that you are not going to 
fire them?” Mac shouted in amazement. 

“Certainly not,” Scott answered with de¬ 
cision. “Do you think I want the whole crew 
added to Foster Wait’s gang? If I am not mis¬ 
taken, that was the purpose in getting them 
drunk. Round them up in the bunk house 
where they can’t get any more, and I’ll see 
what I can do. Isn’t there any one sober 
enough to help you?” 

“Ben and the bull cook seem to have been 
overlooked,” Mac growled. 

“They were in camp, that’s the reason. Get 
them to help you,” Scott ordered, as he took 
his hat and started for the door. 

Mac, growling like a polar bear, went back 
to camp to carry out Scott’s orders. He 
193 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 

wanted to fire the whole crew and it went 
against his grain to have to act as nursemaid 
to such a bunch, but orders were orders with 
him, and he would carry them out to the letter. 

Scott started straight for the opposite moun¬ 
tain growling almost as savagely as Mac at his 
own stupidity. Why hadn’t he guessed where 
Dick had obtained his whisky? And why 
hadn’t he guessed why Foster had been hang¬ 
ing around the camp? And why hadn’t it oc¬ 
curred to him what was at the end of that well- 
beaten trail up there on the mountains? He 
had certainly been a bonehead, but now he was 
determined to get to the bottom of it, and the 
first thing to do was to follow out that trail. 

He was walking rapidly up the road, still 
grumbling at his stupidity, when he saw a 
stranger sitting on a stump beside the road. 
He had almost passed him when he realized 
with a start that it was Hopwood. His iron 
hat was replaced with a soft felt such as all the 
mountaineers wore and it changed his appear¬ 
ance completely. He laughed when he saw 
Scott’s amazament. 

“I thought you must be coming this way,” 
194 


SCOTT FINDS THE STILL 

he said in his usual quiet and rather mysterious 
manner. 

“But what does this mean, Hopwood?” Scott 
asked in bewilderment. “I heard that you had 
taken an oath to wear your iron hat till this 
feud was settled.” 

Hopwood was serious at once. “I don’t need 
that old hunk of iron any more. Til explain it 
to you soon, but I haven’t time now. Where 
are you going?” 

“I suppose you know what has happened. 
I am going up there to find that still. I ought 
to have done it long ago. I found the trail one 
day and I don’t know why it never dawned on 
me what it was. I had heard there was a big 
one somewhere, too. Of course, Foster gave 
those fellows that whisky, didn’t he?” 

Hopwood nodded. “Yes, and I was just 
coming down to warn you to keep out of his 
way. He has been celebrating his success and 
he’s crazy. He would shoot you on sight.” 

“Where is he?” Scott asked sullenly. He 
did not like this business of running away from 
a man, and yet he knew it was the only wise 
thing to do. 


195 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


“He was up at the house a little while ago. 
Keep your eyes open and take to the woods if 
you see him. I’ll come down to see you to¬ 
morrow if I don’t have to go away for a day 
or two.” 

“I may have to go away for a day or two my¬ 
self,” Scott replied. “By the way, where have 
you been? I have not seen you for a long 
time.” 

“I’ve been too busy,” Hopwood replied 
lightly and disappeared in the woods with a 
backward smile. 

Scott did not understand Hopwood. Some 
mysterious change seemed to have come over 
him. But he did not have time to figure it out 
now. He was too anxious to see that still. 
He had Hopwood’s assurance that it was there, 
but he wanted to see it for himself. 

He did not know where the trail started so 
there was nothing for him to do but to go up 
on the ridge to the place where the old pig 
had scared him so badly. He found the place 
without any difficulty and looked around a 
little nervously to make sure that the old sow 
was not still on guard. She was nowhere in 
196 


SCOTT FINDS THE STILL 


sight and he dropped down the slope unmo¬ 
lested in search of the trail. He was surprised 
to see how far down it was. 

When he came to the tunnel into the laurel 
he found some fresh tracks and listened anx¬ 
iously. He was determined to see the still, but 
he did not want any one to see him, partly be¬ 
cause he knew that these men would not hesi¬ 
tate to shoot any one they found spying around 
their still, and partly because he did not want 
any one to know that he had found it. 

He could see nothing. He looked down the 
trail and'made a careful survey of the woods 
behind him. There was no one there who 
might cut off his retreat. Everything seemed 
safe enough and he cautiously entered the nar¬ 
row tunnel. It was longer than he had im¬ 
agined and the turns in it gave him an uncom¬ 
fortable feeling of being shut in. He stopped 
every two feet to listen and then crawled 
slowly forward again. It seemed as though he 
would never get to the end of it. 

When he did get to the end he saw some¬ 
thing that astonished him even more than the 
length of the tunnel. He found himself in a 
197 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


small opening- about four rods across, and in 
the middle of it was a tiny log cabin. He had 
covered over half the distance to the cabin 
when a noise inside made his heart stand still. 

Some one was fumbling with the latch on the 
inside. After the first instant of paralysis Scott 
took in the situation at a glance. If he tried 
to return to the tunnel he would be in direct 
line with the door and would be in sight for 
some distance even after he had entered the 
tunnel. This all passed through his mind like 
a flash. His only chance was to hide around 
the corner of the cabin. He did not know how 
many people there were in there or whether 
there were windows in the end, or possibly an¬ 
other door, but it was his best chance. In two 
jumps he was around the corner. 

The latch clicked up almost the instant he 
started, and long before he reached the corner 
he heard the door swinging open on its rusty 
hinges. A glance showed him that there were 
no windows in that end of the cabin. He was 
hidden for the moment unless he had been dis¬ 
covered before he reached there. 

He turned and peeped anxiously through a 
198 


SCOTT FINDS THE STILL 

crack between the ends of the logs. For what 
seemed to Scott like an age no one appeared. 
He looked nervously behind him and half ex¬ 
pected to see a rifle pointing at him from the 
other corner of the cabin. But there was no 
one there. 

He was beginning to wonder whether he had 
really heard anything at all, or just imagined 
it, when there was a knock against the log wall 
that made him jump almost out of his skin, and 
Foster Wait staggered out of the door with a 
big earthenware jug in one hand and his long 
rifle in the other. He swayed uncertainly and 
took a step or two in Scott’s direction. Scott 
shrank back against the wall and prepared to 
sneak around the cabin, but Foster changed his 
course back toward the cabin door. 

He stood there mumbling for an instant and 
seemed to be talking to some one inside, but 
there was no answer. He laboriously turned 
again and started for the tunnel. He had con¬ 
siderable trouble in getting the jug and the rifle 
both into the opening, but finally succeeded. 
“They’ll never do it, they’ll never do it,” he 
called back angrily over his shoulder. 

199 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 

Scott was sure then that there was some one 
else in the cabin. He had visions of hiding* 
there behind that corner till dark, for the door 
had been left open and he would not dare try to 
sneak out in front of it. He could still hear 
Foster fumbling and mumbling his way 
through the tunnel, but he had not caught any 
sound from within. 

He placed his ear against the log wall and 
listened. The gnawing of a mouse on the other 
side sounded to him like some one tearing off 
the roof, and would have drowned out any 
other noises there might have been. The 
mouse stopped and he held his breath to hear 
better. There was not a sound. Minute after 
minute passed and still no sound. The mouse 
began again. 

“Better be shot than have that mouse scare 
me to death,” Scott muttered to himself, and 
he determined to have a look in the door. First 
he went back to make sure that there was no 
door in the rear. There was only a little square 
window on that side. Slowly he came back to 
his corner and listened once more. All was 
still. 


200 


SCOTT FINDS THE STILL 


With a glance at the tunnel he crawled cau¬ 
tiously toward the door. Inch by inch he made 
his slow advance with his eyes glued on the 
opening and his mind made up to jump on any 
one who might come out—for there was no 
chance to escape now. 

At the very edge of the door he stopped to 
listen and peeped cautiously around the door¬ 
frame. Just then a noise behind him brought 
him to his feet with a bound, and he saw a man 
step out of the tunnel. 


CHAPTER XXII 


HOPWOOD GETS JARRED’S PROMISE 

I N the meanwhile MacAndrews had carried 
out his distasteful duty of rounding up the 
crew in the bunk house. Most of them were 
too far gone to offer much resistance and went 
to bed without protest. He left Ben and the 
bull cook to keep guard and see that no one es¬ 
caped and no outsiders came in. Then he went 
up in the woods to see if he could catch any 
one looking for the men up there. 

He made his way to the top of one of the 
skid roads where he had found a group of the 
swampers and road monkeys. If any attempt 
were made to bring the men more whisky it 
would probably be there where the largest 
group had been. He selected a well sheltered 
spot in the edge of the brush and sat down on 
a log to wait. 

He did not have long to wait. Hardly five 
minutes had passed when the bushes on the 


202 


HOPWOOD GETS JARRED'S PROMISE 

opposite side of the road were parted cautious¬ 
ly and a boy's face peeped out. It was Foster 
Wait's son. Not seeing any one, he came 
slowly out into the skid road and began peer¬ 
ing about. He was evidently disappointed and 
very nervous. It was like Foster to send his 
son where he was afraid to go himself. 

Mac could not wait any longer. He was 
curious to see what the boy would do but his 
desire to get his hands on him was too strong 
for him. He tore from his hiding place and 
made a dive at the boy. But he was no match 
for the badly scared boy. He eluded Mac's 
grasp and sprang into the brush like a rabbit. 
Mac tried to follow him, but he might as well 
have tried to follow a weasel in a haystack. He 
soon gave it up and came back to see if the boy 
had left anything behind him. As he expected 
he found a large stone jug in the brush where 
the boy had first appeared. 

With a grunt of satisfaction Mac dumped 
the contents on the ground. “Enough there to 
paralyze the whole crew for a week," he mum¬ 
bled. He raised the big jug over his head and 
was about to smash it on a rock, but his Scotch 
203 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 

thrift stayed his arm and he took the jug back 
to camp. 

Mac felt that he had a victory in capturing 
the jug, but it would have been far better if he 
had stayed in camp, for the boy was on his 
way home to tell his father that he had been 
seen and probably recognized. 

Hopwood could easily have caught the boy 
for Mac. After his meeting with Scott he had 
headed straight for the works to see if the men 
had been taken in out of harm’s way. He had 
been close enough to hear the crashing of the 
brush and the boy had passed within a few 
feet of him. But what would have been the 
use? They could not do anything with the 
boy after they had caught him, and it did not 
fit into his own plans to line up openly against 
his family just yet. 

He followed Mac almost to camp to make 
sure that all the men were in, but he did not 
go in himself. He turned into the brush with¬ 
out making his presence known to Mac at all. 
A half hour later he turned in at the gate of 
Jarred Morgan’s cottage. 

When Hopwood entered the cabin old 
204 


HOPWOOD GETS JARRED’S PROMISE 

Jarred sprang from his chair with the agility 
of a cat. 

“You fooled me that time, Hopwood, ,, he 
admitted frankly. “It is a long time since I 
have seen you without that iron hat. What is 
the meaning of it? Is the feud ended, then?” 
he asked with a wry smile. 

Hopwood cast a quick glance around the 
cabin. 

Jarred answered the unspoken question. 
“She went out to the orchard.” 

“No,” Hopwood said soberly, “the feud is 
not exactly ended, but I think I am beginning 
to see the end of it.” 

“You think I am going to cash in, do you?” 

“I am hoping that it will not end that way,” 
Hopwood replied earnestly. 

“There is only one other way that it can 
end,” Jarred answered, and his jaw clenched 
tight. 

“That’s why I have come to see you. Would 
you drop this feud if Foster were put out of 
the way for good?” Hopwood spoke with the 
tone of a man exacting an oath. 

“I have never made a contract for a mur- 
205 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


der,” Jarred answered coldly, “and I am too 
old to begin it now.” 

“Look at me, Jarred,” and Hopwood 
squared himself around in front of the old 
man. “Do I look like a crazy man?” 

Jarred’s frown melted into an affectionate 
smile. “No, Hopwood, your old iron hat has 
not fooled me for many years.” 

“Then listen to me,” Hopwood replied with 
a strange tone of confident authority. “I am 
no more likely to take the contract for mur¬ 
dering a man than you are. You have always 
said that you would not give up the feud while 
Foster lived. Now I want to know if you 
would give it up if he were otherwise disposed 
of so that he would never return to this coun¬ 
try?” 

Jarred walked to the door and gazed out 
across at the opposite mountain in silence. It 
was five minutes before he turned back to 
Hopwood and his face was haggard. 

“7 could do it, Hopwood,” he said sadly. “I 
hate to think of that scoundrel escaping my 
vengeance, but I could do it, and—would,” he 
added after a short struggle. “But I was 
206 


HOPWOOD GETS JARRED’S PROMISE 

thinking’ of Vic. Would she? I have trained 
her all her life to hate the Waits, and Vic is a 
good hater. Would she give it up, or would 
she think me a traitor?” 

“I think she would give it up,” Hopwood 
replied confidently. 

Jarred turned quietly and faced him. “What 
makes you think so?” he asked sharply. 

Hopwood blushed like a schoolgirl. He was 
silent a moment and then looked Jarred 
squarely in the eye. “You know what I think 
of Vic and I think she likes me. She never 
seems to think of me as being a Wait, but if 
we should marry some day, it would end all 
thought of the feud.” 

Jarred looked at him thoughtfully. “If I 
thought that could be true, I would agree to 
anything,” he said slowly. “I have been won¬ 
dering lately what would become of Vic. I am 
not as strong as I was and I cannot last for¬ 
ever. She won’t give me any reason, but she 
says she will never go back to her father, and 
I think she means it. She’ll be terribly alone 
in the world when I am gone.” 

“I know why she won’t go back and I think 
207 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


she is right,” Hopwood replied with a dark 
frown. “Would that be satisfactory to you 
then?” he asked wistfully. 

Jarred placed his hand affectionately on 
Hopwood's shoulder. “Hopwood, as far as I 
know there are only two men in the world to 
whom I am indebted—you and Mr. Burton. 
You have done me innumerable good services, 
and he brought Vic to me the night she fell off 
her horse. Both of you want me to give it up. 
I am going to do it and pay a part of both 
debts.” 

Hopwood jumped to his feet and grasped 
the old man's hand. “Now I can go about my 
business. We'll speak of the other some other 
time,” he added with a blush. 

“No need to put it off,” Jarred said. “All I 
ask is that you wait till Vic has grown up. If 
she will have you then, there is nothing in all 
the world that would please me more.” 

Hopwood wrung his hand once more and 
ran out of the house. 


CHAPTER XXIII 
A CLOSE CALL 


W HEN Scott turned his head and saw that 
man standing just at the end of the tun¬ 
nel a great lump rose in his throat and his 
knees almost gave way under him. He wanted 
to run but he could not move. The next in¬ 
stant he recognized Hopwood and the reaction 
was so great that he sat down limply in his 
tracks and stared helplessly. 

“You might as well kill a fellow as scare 
him to death, Hopwood,” he exclaimed when 
he had recovered his breath. 

“And you might as well be dead as to be 
caught here,” Hopwood retorted. “Did Fos¬ 
ter see you? I just met him coming out and 
he was crazy drunk.” 

“Not quite,” Scott replied with a nervous 
laugh, “but I thought so for a minute when I 
saw you,” and he explained to Hopwood what 
a narrow escape he had had, and how he was 
209 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


trying to find out whether there really was 
any one else in the cabin. 

“You should have asked me to bring you 
here,” Hopwood scolded. “Then you would 
not have run such a risk.” 

“I’ll let somebody bring me next time,” 
Scott answered with a grin. “I have done 
about all the exploring I want to do around 
here alone.” 

He had completely recovered now, and he 
got up to have a peek into the cabin. So strong 
had been his impression that there was some¬ 
body in there that he now peeped cautiously 
around the corner of the doorframe. The little 
mouse scurried across a rafter and down the 
opposite wall. There was no other sign of 
life. 

In the center of the opposite wall of the 
cabin was a crude clay fireplace and in it there 
was a large copper retort shaped like an im¬ 
mense pear. From the top of it a long goose¬ 
neck extended far out into the room. Three 
barrels were sitting along the wall at the end 
of the cabin. In another barrel, on which 
there was a tin lid, there was a sack of corn. 


210 


A CLOSE CALL 


Scott looked the things over curiously. It 
was the first moonshine outfit he had ever 
seen. When his curiosity was satisfied he 
turned suddenly to Hopwood. '‘Will you 
swear that Foster Wait runs this thing? ,, he 
asked. 

Hopwood started at the question. “Why?” 
he asked in some confusion. “What are you 
going to do?” 

Scott thought that he had asked too much 
of Hopwood in asking him to give evidence 
against his relative, much as he knew he 
hated him. But it was too late to back out 
now. 

“Because I am going to get the United 
States marshal and have him arrested,” Scott 
answered doggedly. 

“But that is just what I was going to do my¬ 
self,” Hopwood answered with disappoint¬ 
ment. “You better let me do it. I know more 
about it than you do,” he pleaded. 

“No, Hopwood,” Scott replied firmly, “this 
is my problem and I must settle it myself.” 

“Why do you call it your problem when I 
have been working on it for years before you 


211 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


ever heard of it?” Hopwood remonstrated 
with some spirit. 

Scott saw that line of argument would not 
work and changed his tactics. “But, Hop- 
wood, I need you here. There is no use in my 
staying here if you go away. I can't find any¬ 
thing about what is going on if you are not 
here to tell me. I could not tell whether Fos¬ 
ter was getting ready to burn down the camps 
or murder us all. If you stay here while I am 
away and will keep MacAndrews posted, he 
can take care of things all right.” 

Hopwood scratched his head doubtfully for 
a minute and frowned his disappointment. 

“I am not the only one who depends on you, 
you know,” Scott urged. “All the people on 
the other mountain over there depend on you 
for the news.” 

That was the deciding argument. Hop- 
wood had told Jarred that he was going to put 
Foster out of the way and he wanted the glory 
of doing it, but he had been doing things for 
other people all his life and he knew that there 
was some truth in what Scott said. 

“Very well,” he said quietly. “I suppose I’d 


212 


A CLOSE CALL 


better stay, but I do wish that I could go. 
Some day I am going to do something I want 
to/’ 

It seemed so pathetic to any one who knew 
the history of Hopwood’s life that Scott was 
almost tempted to let him go. But he was 
afraid that Hopwood might fail in the mission 
through his limited knowledge of the world. 

“Then if you will take a message to Mac 
Andrews that I am going and for him to put 
the crew to work in the morning as usual, I am 
going to start right away,” Scott said reso¬ 
lutely. The sooner he accomplished his pur¬ 
pose the safer he would be. 

Hopwood agreed without a word of protest 
and led the way into the tunnel. They were 
halfway through it when they were startled 
by a crashing in the brush ahead. Hopwood 
crouched and listened an instant and then mo¬ 
tioned frantically for Scott to go back. Scott 
needed no second warning. The scare Hop- 
wood had given him had shaken his nerves a 
little and he ran back through the tunnel like 
a rabbit. Hopwood was close on his heels. 

“What is it?” Scott asked anxiously. 

213 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


“Foster coming- back/’ Hopwood replied 
briefly. “Come.” He ran lightly to the wall 
of laurel beside the cabin and slowly pushed 
his way into it. Scott followed as close as he 
could but found himself no match for Hop- 
wood at this game. Hopwood did not go far. 
He did not have to. A few feet in that thicket 
and they were completely hidden, but they 
could see out fairly well. 

They were scarcely settled in their retreat 
when Foster lunged out of the tunnel into the 
little clearing. He was apparently in a tower¬ 
ing rage and was mumbling savagely to him¬ 
self. He looked keenly around the clearing 
and strode over to the cabin. From the length 
of time he was inside he must have made a 
very thorough examination. When he came 
out he was examining the ground for tracks. 
Scott thanked his stars that he was wearing 
tennis shoes. 

Whatever the tracks were that Foster was 
following so carefully they led him out to the 
tunnel again. The two refugees breathed 
more freely when he was gone, but their trou¬ 
bles were not over. Foster was not making 
214 


A CLOSE CALL 


the noise he did when he came in and they 
could not tell where he was. Had he gone 
away or was he still in the tunnel? 

They had waited five minutes and no sound 
came from the tunnel. The suspense was be¬ 
ginning to tell on them. 

‘Til sneak out and see, ,, Scott whispered. 

“No,” Hopwood remonstrated. “Let me go. 
He would shoot you on sight. He would not 
shoot me.” 

“He tried to kill you a while ago, didn’t he?” 
Scott asked indignantly. “He will not shoot 
me on sight because he is not going to see me, 
not if I can help it,” he mumbled to himself. 

He did not wait for Hopwood to answer, 
but slipped as quickly and silently as he could 
out into the clearing. He listened intently but 
could hear no sound. Slowly he crawled to the 
tunnel and peeped into it. There was no one 
in sight. With one more attempt to pick up a 
sound he crawled cautiously in. 

It was far more nerve racking than it had 
been when he crawled in. Then he did not 
have much fear of any one being there. Now 
he knew that some one had been there and was 

215 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


not at all certain that he had left. His prog¬ 
ress was painfully slow. He listened after 
every step. He remembered where he had 
been hiding a minute before and glanced nerv¬ 
ously at the wall of rhododendron on either 
side. He was almost tempted to run the rest 
of the way and have it over with. 

It was well that he did not act on that im¬ 
pulse. A few feet more brought him in sight 
of the outer end of the tunnel, and there was 
Foster sitting in the entrance with his long 
rifle across his lap and his eyes glued on the 
mountain trail. 

Noiselessly Scott backed out of sight and 
beat a cautious but rapid retreat. He made his 
way back to Hopwood in the rhododendron 
and told him what he had seen. “Looks as 
though he was posted there for the night,” 
Scott growled. 

“He probably is,” Hopwood replied quietly. 
“I reckon it’s up to us to get out through the 
rhododendron.” 

That possibility had entirely slipped Scott’s 
mind. It had never occurred to him that you 
could go through that rhododendron. He had 
216 


A CLOSE CALL 


been too fascinated by the tunnel and that 
mumbling man at the end of it with a long 
rifle. 

“Then let’s go,” he said. 

Hopwood glanced about him to get his bear¬ 
ings and glided through the dense brush like a 
snake, and as silently. Scott was put to it to 
keep up with him, and try as he would he could 
not move as silently. It was slow going at the 
best, for the course Hopwood had chosen led 
them down into a draw and up on to the next 
ridge. 

They had almost reached the edge of the 
rhododendron when they stumbled on to a 
covey of ruffed grouse. The frightened birds 
went up with a tremendous rush and crashed 
through the brush out into the open. 

“It is a good thing we did not strike them 
down by the clearing,” Hopwood whispered. 
“We would have had Foster on us in an in¬ 
stant. Here we are safe because he can’t very 
well follow us fast enough through there to do 
him any good.” 

They came out of the brush on to the open 
ridge and it seemed almost like coming out of 
217 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


a cave. Scott climbed up on a point of rock to 
get his bearings. 

Scarcely had he straightened up when his 
hat flew from his head and the ping of a rifle 
sounded from the opposite ridge. Scott fell 
from the rock in a heap. 

Hopwood ran to him. “Did he get you?” 
he asked anxiously. 

Scott felt his head and there was blood on 
his fingers. “Must have grazed me,” he said, 
“but it does not amount to anything.” 

Hopwood examined it and found a half-inch 
cut in his scalp. “That’s what those partridges 
did for us,” Hopwood said. “I am sorry he 
saw us but it can’t be helped now. Now, we’ll 
have to get out of here.” 

Scott scrambled to his feet and recovered his 
punctured hat. He examined it with a little 
shudder and started up the ridge. 

“Not that way,” Hopwood exclaimed. 
“That’s the way he will come.” 

So Hopwood led the way once more across 
a brush-filled draw on to the next ridge. Up 
this they made their way very cautiously, tak¬ 
ing good care to keep out of sight. They were 
218 


A CLOSE CALL 


almost up to the main ridge when Hopwood 
hid behind a ledge of rock and motioned Scott 
to do the same. 

“We can see the other ridge from here,” he 
whispered, “and we better wait till we see Fos- 
ter go down. We might meet him up there on 
the ridge.” 

After what seemed like an age they caught 
a glimpse of Foster making his way cautious¬ 
ly down the opposite ridge. He had seen Scott 
fall from the ledge and was on his way down 
to make sure of him. When he was out of 
sight they crawled out of their hiding place 
and struck for the main ridge. 

“I wonder what aroused his suspicion,” 
Hopwood said. 

“I don’t know,” Scott said, “and it does not 
make any difference. He can’t head us off 
now.” 

Hopwood shook his head doubtfully. 
“Maybe not, but I wish he did not know any¬ 
thing about it. He may guess what we are 
going to do, and if he does it may drive him to 
something desperate.” 

They were on the open trail now and 
219 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


stopped for a moment. “Well,” Scott said, 
“don’t let’s worry about it. You take the mes¬ 
sage to Mac and keep your eye on Foster the 
best you can. I’ll take the trail over the moun¬ 
tain.” 

They had hardly disappeared when Foster 
ran back on to the trail. He was raging like 
a madman. He knew that something, he 
could not tell just what, was in the wind, and 
it was driving him mad. 

A squirrel chattered at him from a big oak 
tree, and he shot it with an oath. 


CHAPTER XXIV 
SCOTT GOES AFTER THE MARSHAL 


S COTT did not lose any time on the trail to 
the town where the United States marshal 
made his headquarters, but it was a long day’s 
hike and he had not started much before the 
middle of the afternoon. Night caught him 
while he was still on the mountain trails. The 
sky was cloudy, and down in the dense woods 
it was black as a pocket. He knew that he 
would save time and effort by camping out for 
the night and getting an early start in the 
morning. He was not gaining anything by 
feeling his way along inch by inch in the dark. 
He stumbled into an ice-cold trout stream and 
gave it up. 

The nights were cold there in the moun¬ 
tains, and he was feeling around for some fire¬ 
wood when he saw a light glimmering through 
the trees far down the trail. As his feet were 
already wet he waded across the stream and 
made his way slowly toward the light. 


221 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


It proved to be a lamp in a small logging 
camp. It was a comparatively small cabin 
with the cook stove and dining table in one end 
of it. The walls of the rest of the room were 
lined with double-decked bunks. Every one 
seemed to be in bed except an old woman who 
was reading at the dining table. She looked 
up indifferently when Scott knocked at the 
door. 

“Good evening,” he said. “Night caught me 
up here on the trail. Is there any place here 
where I can get a bed?” 

The woman looked at him suspiciously for 
a minute and seemed to be undecided whether 
or not to call her husband. Then she pointed 
to an empty bed in the corner. 

“I don’t want to crowd you here,” Scott 
apologized. 

“You won’t bother nobody,” the woman re¬ 
plied without looking up from her book. 

Scott did not think much of his reception. 
He had not had anything to eat since morning, 
but the looks of the place did not encourage 
him to ask for anything. It would be better 
than sleeping out in the cold without blankets 


222 


SCOTT GOES AFTER THE MARSHAL 


even if he were hungry. He walked over to 
the bunk and crawled in without any further 
ceremony than taking off his shoes. 

For a few minutes he lay there and marveled 
at the tremendous chorus of snores which 
seemed to be coming from all parts of the little 
cabin, but he soon fell asleep in spite of the 
music and his hunger. In the morning Scott 
was astonished to see the number of people 
who rolled out of those bunks—men, women 
and children. It was evidently a big family, 
but he was not sure he had seen them all. 

After the way he had been received the night 
before, Scott intended to thank them for the 
lodging and depart without breakfast, but the 
man would not have it so. 

“Where did you get supper?” he asked. 

“I did not have any,” Scott replied a little 
spitefully. 

The man was very much put out and in¬ 
sisted on Scott’s staying to breakfast. Scott 
accepted, but before he was through he was 
sorry he had not stuck to his original purpose 
of goring away hungry. When the man learned 
he was running the logging job on the other 
223 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


side of the mountain, he became so interested 
that Scott had a hard time getting away from 
him. If he had seen one of the boys slip around 
the house and run off up the trail in the direc¬ 
tion from which he had come the night before, 
he might have been suspicious of so many 
questions. 

It was seven o’clock before he got away 
from these people and started for the town. 
Even at that the marshal was not up when he 
arrived. He had recovered from his logging- 
camp breakfast sufficiently to eat another at 
the little hotel while he was waiting for the 
marshal. 

Scott had never heard anything but curses 
for the United States marshal from the moun¬ 
taineers and had formed a picture of him that 
was rudely shattered when he saw the reality. 
Instead of the shiftless, cringing old man he 
expected to see, he found a keen, alert, ener¬ 
getic man of about forty-five. He had been a 
sharpshooter in the Spanish War and was 
every inch a man. 

“Now what can I do for you?” he asked 
briskly, when Scott had introduced himself. 

224 


SCOTT GOES AFTER THE MARSHAL 

“I am running a logging job on the other 
side of the mountain/’ Scott explained, “and 
there is a moonshine still over there that is 
causing me all kinds of trouble. I thought 
maybe I could get you to clean it up for me. 
The man who is running it is an incendiary 
and a murderer as well as a moonshiner.” 

“Sounds as though it might be Foster Wait,” 
the marshal said with a frown. 

“It is,” Scott said. 

“Then you may be able to get him in the 
courts for arson or murder if you can produce 
the evidence, but I am afraid I can’t help you 
much. I have put in days looking for that still, 
have searched every square inch of his place, 
but have never been able to find a trace of it. 
That has been a sore spot with me for several 
years.” 

“But the still isn’t on his place,” Scott said. 

“Do you mean to say that you know where 
it is?” the marshal cried eagerly. 

“Yes,” Scott said, “I stumbled on to it in the 
woods one day.” 

“But if it is not on his place, can you prove 
that it is his?” the marshal asked doubtfully. 

225 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


“Yes,” Scott said. “I know a man who is 
familiar with it and will swear to it.” 

“Good!” the marshal exclaimed, jumping 
enthusiastically to his feet. “Come on over to 
the judge and we’ll swear out a warrant for 
this bird. Didn’t see anybody on the way over 
here, did you?” 

“Yes,” Scott said. “Foster saw me just be¬ 
fore I started,” and he explained his experi¬ 
ence. 

“Still that was a long way from here and he 
may not have guessed where you were going. 
See anybody else?” 

“I spent the night at a little logging camp 
up here on the mountain a ways,” Scott ad¬ 
mitted, “but they seemed too dumb to know 
anything.” 

“Yes, they seem dumb enough, but they 
have notified Foster long ago that you came 
this way. I doubt if we can get him now, but 
I’ll fix that still for you.” 

The judge was as interested as the marshal. 
“I’d like to get that fellow,” he exclaimed. 
“There was a crazy man in a big iron hat down 
here some weeks ago who wanted me to arrest 
226 


SCOTT GOES AFTER THE MARSHAL 


him for something he had not yet done, but we 
have never been able to get any real charge 
against him that any one would support.” 

“I'll support this one,” Scott said doggedly. 
“He’s the key man in that feud over there and 
I am going to put him in the penitentiary if it 
takes me all summer.” 

“All right, then, let's go,” the marshal ex¬ 
claimed. “Did you hoof it over here?” 

“Yes,” Scott said. “I didn't have a horse 
handy, and, anyway, I thought I could make 
better time over these mountain trails on 
foot.” 

“Well, you couldn't if you had my horse, but 
I'll walk with you this time. We'll be off the 
trail a good deal and I don't want to be too 
conspicuous.” 

They went back by another trail which the 
marshal knew to avoid the logging camp and 
any one who might be looking for them. When 
the marshal started out anywhere, it was usu¬ 
ally well heralded all over the mountain. 

They were walking rapidly up a steep moun¬ 
tain trail when the marshal suddenly stopped 
and held up his hand. Scott peeped through 
227 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


the bushes and was surprised to see that they 
were in sight of the trail on the main ridge just 
above the still. He followed the direction of 
the marshal's pointing finger and saw one of 
Foster's boys earnestly watching the trail 
Scott had gone down the day before. 

They made a detour and crossed the main 
ridge trail back of the boy. Just as they 
started down the slope toward the still, three 
rifle shots rang out in the valley below. 

“There is something doing down there," the 
marshal whispered. “Sounds as though we 
ought to have brought the sheriff and a bunch 
of deputies." 


CHAPTER XXV 

HOPWOOD SENDS FOSTER A MESSAGE 


H OPWOOD did not go immediately back 
to camp to carry the message to Mac- 
Andrews. There would be plenty of time for 
that after dark. He thought it better to hang 
around and try to find out something of Fos- 
er’s plans. Instead of going down the trail he 
hid in the brush and watched, for he felt sure 
that Foster would come back that way when 
he found he had missed his mark. 

He saw Foster come out of the woods and 
judged his state of mind pretty well from his 
looks. When he saw him shoot the squirrel 
he was convinced of his savage rage. In such 
a condition as that he might do anything. He 
thought of old Jarred and little Vic up there 
on the opposite mountain and wondered what 
form his rage would take. 

Just then Foster could not have told him 
himself. He only knew that he had lost his 
229 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


opportunity in a game that he did not very 
clearly understand. Why had Scott gone to 
the still and not touched it? If he had de¬ 
stroyed the still and the supply of whisky in 
those barrels he could have understood that. 
He would have been trying to protect himself 
and his crew. But he had not destroyed it. 

Then a new thought occurred to him. Per¬ 
haps Scott had gone there to destroy things 
but had been interrupted before he had a 
chance to carry out his purpose. Perhaps he 
had destroyed it after he himself had been 
there. There had been quite an interval be¬ 
tween the time he had looked in the cabin and 
the time he discovered Scott on the opposite 
ridge. He decided to see; it would at least give 
him something to do. 

He started toward the still again and Hop- 
wood, who had been able almost to read his 
thoughts, followed as close as he dared. Fos¬ 
ter went straight to the still and Hopwood 
waited outside the tunnel. Foster was not rea¬ 
soning, he was just grasping wildly for some 
clue in this blind puzzle. He hurried to the 
cabin. Everything was just as he had left it. 

230 


SENDS FOSTER A MESSAGE 


He came out and examined the edge of the 
clearing. He easily found the trail leading 
into the laurel. He really did not see the 
tracks of Scott’s tennis shoes, but he had not 
seen Hopwood and mistook his boots for 
Scott’s. He realized now that he had trapped 
Scott in there when he came back, and ground 
his teeth in his disappointment. As much puz¬ 
zled as ever he paced nervously up and down 
the little clearing. Then he determined to go 
home and send his boy to find out where Scott 
had gone. 

Hopwood followed Foster home and saw the 
boy start down the road toward the village. 
He did not think it likely that Foster would 
leave the house again that night and decided to 
overtake the boy. Possibly he could pump 
some of Foster’s plans out of him. He was a 
favorite with all the young people on both 
sides of the mountain. For some reason they 
seemed to look on him as an old man, although 
in reality he was little older than they were, 
except in mental capacity. 

He kept to the woods till he was out of sight 
from the house. But he was so used to the 


231 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


woods that he lost little time by that and once 
in the road he soon overtook the boy. 

“Hello, Bill! ,? he called. “Dad out of chew¬ 
ing tobacco?” 

“No,” Bill growled. “He ain't even got that 
excuse.” The boy did not seem to be any too 
pleased with his errand, whatever it was and 
spoke sullenly. 

“What then?” Hopwood persisted. “Just 
out for your health?” 

“Out for his health, I reckon,” the boy re¬ 
plied spitefully. “He wants me to find out 
where that logging boss is.” 

“Who, MacAndrews?” Hopwood asked in¬ 
nocently. 

“No, Burton,” Bill growled. 

“That ought to be easy,” Hopwood said 
teasingly. “MacAndrews can probably tell 
you where he is.” 

“Might if I asked him,” the boy replied dog¬ 
gedly, “but MacAndrews isn't going to see 
me.” 

“What's the matter? Been stealing stuff 
from the cook shack?” Hopwood went on. 

“No,” Bill protested, “but he pretty near 
232 


SENDS FOSTER A MESSAGE 


caught me this morning when I went over to 
take some whisky to the men.” 

Hopwood whistled. “No wonder you don’t 
want him to see you. Then how are you going 
to find out?” 

“Ask Mr. Roberts, I reckon.” 

For some reason or other the station agent 
had never lost his title with these people. He 
was still “Mr.” Roberts after years of residence 
in close touch with them. 

Hopwood thought a moment. Mr. Roberts 
might know where Scott had gone, and if he 
did, he might tell Bill, and that would not do 
at all. 

“Maybe I can find out for you from MacAn- 
drews,” he volunteered. 

Bill cheered up at once. “Gee, will you, 
Hop? Dad seems to want to know awful bad, 
and if I don’t find out I’ll be afraid to go 
home.” 

“All right,” Hopwood agreed. “I’ll ask Mac- 
Andrews for you.” 

They walked on for a while in silence. Bill’s 
troubles had been unexpectedly lifted from his 
shoulders and Hopwood had found out what 
233 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 

he wanted to know. Foster did not know 
where Scott had gone, and he would not find 
out from this boy if Hopwood could help it. 
And he thought that he could. 

When they came within sight of the camp it 
was growing dark, but they could still see 
dusky figures moving about. 

‘Til wait here, ,, Bill said, and the tone of his 
voice indicated that nothing on earth could 
persuade him to go any nearer. 

“All right,” Hopwood agreed. ‘Til be back 
in a few minutes.” 

He strolled on down to the bunk house. The 
men had just straggled out from supper and 
they were a sorry-looking lot. Some had gone 
straight to bed. Others were lolling around a 
bonfire outside. They looked at Hopwood 
curiously but none of them had ever seen him 
before, and they were too woebegone even to 
speak to him. 

He was just going into the bunk house when 
he saw MacAndrews coming out of the cook 
shack. Hopwood walked straight up to him 
and came out frankly with his message. “Mr. 
MacAndrews, Mr. Burton asked me to tell 
234 


SENDS FOSTER A MESSAGE 


you to put the men to work in the morning as 
usual and that he would be back to-morrow/’ 

Mac had been staring hard at him trying to 
recognize him in the dusk. u, Who are you?” 
he asked gruffly. 

“My name is Hopwood,” Hopwood replied 
wisely leaving off his last name. 

“Come into the cook shack,” Mac growled, 
“where I can have a good look at you. I am 
suspicious of visitors since this morning.” 

Hopwood followed him obediently into the 
cook shack and looked him squarely in the eye. 
“He also told me that I was to keep in touch 
with you while he was away and let you know 
what Foster Wait was doing.” 

“He did, did he?” Mac grunted, as he 
looked him over suspiciously from head to 
foot. “Where has he gone?” 

Hopwood looked around and lowered his 
voice. “He went over the mountain to see the 
United States marshal.” 

Mac grunted his satisfaction but his suspi¬ 
cion was not completely allayed. “Who the 
deuce are you?” he asked again. “You look 
like one of these pesky mountaineers to me.” 
2 35 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


“I am/’ Hopwood replied bluntly, “but I am 
a friend of Mr. Burton's and I don't like Foster 
Wait as well as you do. That ought to be 
enough to satisfy you." 

“Well," Mac said grudgingly, “if you are a 
liar you are a mighty slick one. I'll take a 
chance on you, anyway. What's that man 
Wait up to now?" 

“He was in the house when I came by there 
a while ago. He's not likely to come out again 
to-night, and I'll watch him in the morning 
and let you know if he's up to anything." 

“Very well," Mac replied. “I'll be watch¬ 
ing for you, and—for him," he added grimly. 

Hopwood started for the door. “Don't you 
want a hand-out?" Mac called after him hos¬ 
pitably. 

As Hopwood had not had anything to eat 
since morning, he gladly accepted the invita¬ 
tion. While he was eating Mac plied him with 
all kinds of questions about Foster Wait. It 
was evident that it would be a bad day for Fos¬ 
ter if he ever fell into Mac's hands. 

When he had finished the generous meal 
which Ben had given him he walked out to 
236 


SENDS FOSTER A MESSAGE 


find Bill. The boy was sitting on the stump 
waiting patiently. Waiting was one of the 
best things Bill did. 

“You ought to have come with me,” Hop- 
wood said. “The cook gave me a great hand¬ 
out/’ 

“You can have mine in there,” Bill replied 
with a wry face. “What did he say about his 
boss?” 

“He said he was out on the works to-day 
and would be back in camp to-night,” Hop- 
wood lied glibly. 

It was enough for the boy to have a satis¬ 
factory answer to take home. He did not ques¬ 
tion the truth of it. “Thanks,” he said, and 
started back up the mountain. 

“Wait a while and IT1 walk up with you,” 
Hopwood volunteered. 

“I gotta be getting home,” the boy said. 
“He’ll be mad enough now without keeping 
him waiting any longer.” 

Hopwood watched him out of sight in the 
darkness. “Well, give him that information,” 
he mumbled maliciously to himself. “It may 
quiet his nerves.” 


237 


CHAPTER XXVI 


FOSTER REVIVES THE FEUD 

N O one knew where Hopwood spent the 
night. He did not accept Mac's invita¬ 
tion to stay at the camp, but early morning 
found him on the road again on his way up to 
scout around Foster's cabin. He had an un¬ 
easy feeling that something would happen if 
Foster found out where Scott had gone. He 
chuckled to think that he probably would not 
find it out now. He had sounded out Mr. 
Roberts and found that he did not know. 

It was an hour after he had taken up his 
watch in a little patch of woods across the 
road from the house before he noticed any 
signs of life. A thin wisp of smoke curled 
up from the kitchen chimney. Every now and 
then he caught a roar from the rear of the 
house but no other sound of voices, a pretty 
good indication that Foster was in no better 
mood than he had been the night before. 

238 


FOSTER REVIVES THE FEUD 


A half hour later Bill came running around 
the house with head ducked low. Once safe 
around the corner he dropped down to a slow 
shuffle. He had been crying, and he looked 
longingly up at the mountain before he turned 
reluctantly down toward the village. 

“He either suspects where Scott has gone 
or he is planning some new devilment as soon 
as he gets back,” Hopwood mused, as he 
watched Bill crawling slowly on his snail-like 
way. “Well, Foster is not likely to go out till 
Bill gets back and that can’t be for two hours 
at the rate he is moving.” 

He had almost decided to go on another er¬ 
rand while he was waiting for Bill to come 
back when a movement caught his eye and he 
saw a barefoot boy turn in at Foster’s gate. 
Hopwood groaned with disappointment and 
apprehension, for he knew that boy was bear¬ 
ing one of two messages: either that Scott had 
passed the logging camp on the way down, or 
that the marshal had left town on the way up. 
Probably it was the former, because the mar¬ 
shal would know enough to avoid that camp. 
Hopwood blamed himself for not having 


239 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


warned Scott to keep away from it. Well, it 
could not be helped now. 

“There will be something doing pretty soon 
now,” he thought. 

He was not mistaken. The arrival of the 
boy at the Wait cabin was like the spark on a 
fuse running into a powder magazine. Foster 
roared like a wounded lion, and everything 
seemed to be in great commotion. A little girl 
darted out of the house and tore down the road 
toward the village. 

“After Bill,” Hopwood mused. “I wonder 
what the game is?” 

The commotion in the back of the house 
continued. 

In a few minutes the girl and Bill came trot¬ 
ting back together. His reluctance to go had 
made his recall easy. Hopwood kept a close 
lookout now. He did not want anything to 
escape him, for much might depend on what 
he saw now. He saw Bill slip out of the side 
gate and take a short cut up the mountain car¬ 
rying a long rifle. 

Hopwood knew what that meant. The boy 
was to keep watch and fire his rifle as a signal 
240 


FOSTER REVIVES THE FEUD 


if he saw the marshal coming that way. That 
was an old trick that he had seen worked many 
times before, but he had never had the interest 
in it that he had now. The boy from the log¬ 
ging camp followed close behind Bill. 

These things did not worry Hopwood. A 
warning of the marshal's approach would not 
do any harm. He had expected that. But 
when he saw two of the younger children 
scamper off on the trails which led to the cab¬ 
ins of other members of the family, and saw 
Foster run hurriedly to the barn to get his 
white horse, he began to get excited. 

If this were Sewall, he would know that he 
was assembling the clan to resist the marshal. 
But he knew that they would not protect Fos¬ 
ter, and Foster knew it himself. 

“There is only one way," Hopwood thought, 
“that Foster could get the support of the oth¬ 
ers, and that would be to start a fight with the 
Morgans." If that were the plan he did not 
have much time to do it. No wonder he was 
in a hurry, with the marshal probably already 
on his way over the mountain. 

So firmly did this idea take hold of Hop- 
241 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


wood that he could stand it no longer. Foster 
galloped away furiously in the direction of the 
village, and Hopwood, breaking cover like a 
rabbit, darted across the road and straight 
through the woods on a bee line for the oppo¬ 
site mountain. 

A little farther down he came into a trail 
and ducked out of it again just in time to miss 
another Wait who was hurrying toward the 
village. As soon as the rider was out of sight 
he broke into the trail again and ran panting 
on his way. 

He crossed the railroad track below the vill¬ 
age and ran gasping up the steep slope with 
his eyes glued on a little clearing far up on the 
mountainside. Every instant he dreaded that 
he would see Foster’s white horse flash across 
that clearing. Would he be in time? 

It was this thought that drove him on and 
urged him to almost superhuman efforts, while 
every breath he drew tore at his lungs like a 
rusty knife. Stumbling like a drunken man he 
tottered out into the road in front of Jarred’s 
cabin. 

The white horse was nowhere in sight. He 
242 


FOSTER REVIVES THE FEUD 


had won the race. No matter how fast they 
came now Jarred would have his warning. He 
did not have the breath to shout at the gate. 
He ran across the yard and into the cabin 
without ceremony. 

The minutes dragged slowly by and Hop- 
wood did not come out. An unnatural silence 
seemed to surround the place. Not a single 
bird note broke the weird stillness, and even 
the little brook which usually tinkled so musi¬ 
cally over the stones by the house seemed to 
be gliding softly now. Only the ticking of the 
old cuckoo clock within the cabin boomed out 
like the blows of a hammer. 

The slow minutes passed: ten, fifteen, 
twenty, and Hopwood came slowly out. He 
looked weary and disheartened. Even the 
sound of a rifle shot from the valley below did 
not arouse him. He stood with his arms 
folded on top of the fence and looked listlessly 
across at the opposite mountain. There was 
another shot fired in the valley and a scatter¬ 
ing volley answered it, but he did not seem to 
hear them. 

Vic appeared in the doorway and called to 
243 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


him. “You must find out what that is, Hop- 
wood. Are they fighting us or the logging 
camp?” 

Hopwood started as though he had been 
awakened from a dream. With a wave of the 
hand to Vic he vaulted the fence and ran down 
the slope. When he came to the railroad track 
he hesitated a moment and then turned up the 
track toward the village. 

He found Mr. Roberts sitting on the end of 
the station platform watching the fight as 
calmly as though watching a game from a 
grand stand. 

“Just what happened?” Hopwood asked. 

Shots were still being fired spasmodically 
from both sides of the street. 

“Foster rode up to the store like a madman 
and shot across at Morgan’s wife without any 
warning,” Mr. Roberts replied, without taking 
his eyes off the fight. 

“Did he hit her?” Hopwood asked with a 
hard unnatural ring in his voice. 

“Couldn’t miss her, just across the street,” 
Mr. Roberts replied. 

A cold steely glint came into Hopwood’s 
244 


FOSTER REVIVES THE FEUD 


soft blue eyes and his jaw set tight. “Kill 
her?” he persisted. 

“Couldn't tell,” Mr. Roberts replied calmly. 
“They hauled her inside.” 

Hopwood did not wait to hear any more. 
With a growl of rage he jumped across the 
railroad track and ran up the western slope 
with all the speed his tired legs could muster. 


CHAPTER XXVII 


SCOTT ARRIVES AT THE VILLAGE 

S COTT and the marshal started down the 
mountain in the direction of the firing. 
“Where is that still ?” the marshal asked. 
“We might as well have a look at it if it is up 
this way.” 

“It won’t be much out of the way,” Scott 
said. “We are about there now.” He was so 
anxious to get to the village that he would not 
have consented to stop at all except that he 
thought he might find Hopwood at the still, 
and he was crazy to know what was going on. 
He led the marshal down the mountain at a run. 
“Here’s the trail to it,” he exclaimed. 

When they came to the tunnel the marshal 
slipped ahead with his revolver in his hand. 
“Let me pack this gun in there ahead,” he 
whispered. “Not likely to be any one there, 
but if there should be, he might be peevish.” 
They made their way cautiously through 
246 


SCOTT ARRIVES AT THE VILLAGE 


the rhododendron and paused at the other end 
to watch and listen. There was no evidence of 
any one and the marshal ran quickly across 
the clearing to the cabin. Scott was close at 
his heels. There was no one there. 

“This is a fine outfit,” the marshal exclaimed 
enthusiastically. “Big enough to supply the 
county. No wonder I could not find it. They 
are a foxy bunch. Put it on government land, 
too.” 

One glance had shown Scott that Hopwood 
was not there and he was anxious to be off. 
“Come on,” he exclaimed, “you can destroy 
this thing any time. I’ve got to see what is 
happening down there. That may be my crew 
fighting.” 

“Just the same, I am going to fix this thing 
before I go,” the marshal replied coolly. “Any 
one who is slick enough to put this thing in 
here might be pretty clever in getting it out. 
I’ll take no chances.” 

With a few blows of his hatchet he cut the 
copper retort to ribbons and knocked the heads 
out of the barrels. “Now they can have it,” 
he cried with a chuckle of satisfaction. 

247 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


Scott was already halfway out of the tunnel. 
As soon as he emerged on the open trail he saw 
Hopwood coming, exhausted but determined. 

“What is going on, Hopwood ?" he called 
anxiously. 

“They're at it," Hopwood panted as he sank 
on a log. 

“What started it?" Scott asked. 

“The boy from the logging camp reported 
that you had gone over the mountain," Hop- 
wood gasped. “And Foster shot Vic's mother 
in cold blood." 

Scott was horror struck. “Why, that is what 
Sewall predicted," he said, “but I didn't believe 
it possible." 

“It was murder," Hopwood replied coldly. 

“Jarred isn't hurt, is he?" Scott persisted. 

Hopwood's answer was so low that Scott 
had to lean over him to hear it at all. A look 
of keen disappointment passed over Scott's 
face. 

“How did that happen?" he asked. 

Again Hopwood's answer was so low that he 
could hardly hear it. 

Scott straightened suddenly. His anger was 
248 


SCOTT ARRIVES AT THE VILLAGE 


choking him, and the hot blood leaping through 
his veins almost blinded him. 

Hopwood, still panting from his exertions, 
jumped from the log and started straight down 
through the woods. 

“Where are you going?” Scott called 
sharply. 

“Down to fight on the side of the Morgans,” 
he answered without even turning his head. 

“So am I,” Scott exclaimed savagely, “and 
so is all my logging crew unless this feud is 
dropped now and forever.” 

“What's going on?” the marshal asked. 

But Scott did not seem to hear him. He 
strode down the mountain slope in the direc¬ 
tion Hopwood had taken. His eyes were 
searching the woods for any signs of the Waits, 
and his ears were straining to catch any signifi¬ 
cant sounds from the valley below, but his mind 
was far away in the little cabin up on the oppo¬ 
site mountain. 

When they came to a little clearing on a 
knoll which overlooked the village they stopped 
to reconnoiter. At first they could see nothing 
out of the ordinary. The village seemed as 
249 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


quiet and deserted as ever. Mr. Roberts was 
still sitting calmly on the end of the station 
platform and two women were peeping from 
an upstairs window of the hotel. 

They were almost directly in the rear of the 
Waits’ position, and gradually they began to 
distinguish them. First, one here, crouching 
behind the corner of the store, then another one 
behind the lumber pile. Twenty-two they 
counted and all armed. 

One man seemed to be holding himself in re¬ 
serve for an emergency. He stood apart from 
the others, his arms folded across the end of 
the barrel of his long rifle, and his chin resting 
on his arms. He did not seem to be taking any 
active part. He must have been in plain sight 
of both parties but none of them seemed to 
molest him. 

Every now and then the vicious ping of a 
high-power rifle rang out from the Morgan 
store and was answered by a scattering volley 
from the men in hiding before them. 

They saw Hopwood slip across the railroad 
back of the hotel and glide around through the 
woods to the back of the Morgan store. 

250 


SCOTT ARRIVES AT THE VILLAGE 


The marshal had been examining the scene 
minutely through his field glasses. Suddenly 
he grasped Scott’s elbow. 

“There’s my man,” he whispered. 

Scott followed the direction of the pointing 
finger. Farthest away from the store and se¬ 
curely hidden behind a long pile of cordwood 
was Foster Wait. 

“The farthest away and the best hidden of 
them all,” Scott sneered. “The coward!” 

Over in the other direction, opposite the 
hotel, on a knoll very similar to their own, was 
the whole logging crew. 

“I’m going over there to give a message to 
my foreman,” Scott said. “Then I am going 
down to put an end to this row.” 

“Better keep out of it,” the marshal advised. 
“Let the sheriff take care of it. The peace¬ 
maker always gets the worst of it.” 

But Scott shook his head and started toward 
his crew. Mac had seen him coming and met 
him halfway. 

“Some show,” Mac exclaimed cheerfully. 
“They have not bothered us yet and I reckon 
maybe they know enough to let us alone.” 

251 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


“I am going down there to try to stop it, 
Mac. If anything interferes with me it will be 
these fellows on this side. If they do, clean 
them up.” 

“We’ll do that,” Mac exclaimed enthusiasti¬ 
cally. “But why not let us clean them up first? 
It would be safer?” 

“No,” Scott replied firmly, “that would not 
do. I don’t think they will bother me and I 
don’t want you to mix in the thing at all unless 
they do.” 

A fresh burst of shots rattled around the 
buildings on both sides of the street. “They 
haven’t hit anybody yet,” Mac growled sarcas¬ 
tically, “but they may hurt somebody if they 
keep on.” 

When Scott got back to the knoll, the mar¬ 
shal was nowhere in sight. He did not stop 
to look for him. He had made up his mind 
what he was going to do and he was anxious 
to be about it. He picked his way diagonally 
across the slope, back of the Waits’ position 
to where the station agent was sitting on the 
platform. 

He talked earnestly to Mr. Roberts for a mo- 
252 


SCOTT ARRIVES AT THE VILLAGE 


ment and started up the road toward the 
village. 

“Better keep out of it,” Mr. Roberts called 
after him pleadingly. 

But Scott neither turned back nor answered 
him. 


CHAPTER XXVIII 
THE END OF THE FEUD 

S COTT walked rapidly up the road toward 
the store. He felt a shiver run up his back 
as he passed the woodpile where Foster was 
hiding, but he held his course steadily and 
looked neither to the right nor the left. 

Astonishment and wonder held the men on 
both sides motionless. It seemed to Scott as 
though he were walking all alone through a 
great desert with a row of mines on either side 
of him. He could almost hear the sputtering 
of the fuses. He had never felt so lonely in 
all his life. 

He heard a voice on the Morgan side shout¬ 
ing to him to keep back, and he recognized it 
as Hopwood's. 

Only when he came to a spot squarely be¬ 
tween the two stores did he stop. There he 
held his hand solemnly up over his head and 
called out in a voice that all could hear. 


254 


THE END OF THE FEUD 

“I have a message for all of you and I call 
upon you all as men to come out here and listen 
to it.” 

He called in a loud voice, but so tense was the 
stillness that a whisper could have been heard 
as well. And the silence continued after he 
had spoken. He did not repeat it but stood 
there with hand uplifted. The suspense was 
nerve racking. At last it was broken. 

“Say what you have to say and get out of 
the road,” called a sullen voice from the Mor¬ 
gan store. 

“Very well,” Scott agreed solemnly, “if it 
must be that way, listen.” 

He saw Sewall standing up there apart from 
the others and rightly guessed that he was not 
in sympathy with what was being done. He 
glanced at him occasionally for reassurance, for 
he did not feel at all sure that his plan would 
be a success. 

“If you knew why you were fighting here 
to-day, you would never have come,” he began. 

“If that's all you have to say, we've heard 
enough,” the same sullen voice interrupted. 

Scott paid no attention to it, but continued 
255 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


in an impressive voice. “You think you are 
fighting for the old feud which has kept you 
neighbors enemies for forty years, but you are 
not. You are fighting because there is a 
coward in your midst who felt his influence 
slipping and shot an innocent woman to make 
it appear that you were being attacked. It 
worked, and you are fighting here to protect a 
murderer.” 

There was a dead silence as they strove to 
realize the significance of what he had said. 
He had seen Sewall bring his rifle into a more 
convenient position when he began to talk. 
Now he suddenly threw it up to his shoulder 
and aimed at the woodpile. 

There were two shots almost at the same 
instant, and a bullet plowed up the ground at 
Scott’s feet and covered him with dust. 

“There is the proof of what I say,” Scott 
shouted. “He is attempting another murder 
to cover up the first.” He pointed scornfully 
toward the woodpile and was as much aston¬ 
ished as the others at what he saw. 

Foster was crouching on the ground with his 
hands held high above his head while the mar- 
256 


THE END OF THE FEUD 

shal stood over him with his smoking revolver 
in his hand. It was his shot that had spoiled 
Foster’s aim just in the nick of time. Sewall 
had been too late. 

There was a murmur of resentment among 
the Waits at the sight of the marshal, whom 
they all regarded as their common enemy, 
arresting one of their members in their very 
midst. Scott saw that he was in danger of 
losing out. 

“I brought the marshal here after that man 
because I could not get the sheriff. He is 
wanted for the cold-blooded murder of two 
women. Do you want to support such a man 
as that?” 

There was silence again. Scott saw that he 
had them with him. 

“Let me talk to your real leaders,” he 
shouted. “Come down here* Sewall.” 

Sewall walked slowly forward, and men on 
both sides stepped out of their hiding places 
to see him come, and crowded slowly in around 
the two. 

“Where is Jarred Morgan?” Scott asked, 
when Sewall stepped out into the road. 

257 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


“Probably in the store there,” one of the 
Waits suggested. 

“He is not,” Scott replied loudly enough for 
all to hear. “He is up at his cabin dying of 
pneumonia.” 

There was a murmur of surprise and incre¬ 
dulity. Sewall’s face showed genuine regret. 

“And do you want to know what gave him 
the pneumonia?” Scott persisted, addressing 
himself directly to Sewall. “Because he 
jumped into the pool to save your child from 
drowning.” 

“What?” Sewall gasped. “Did Jarred do 
that? She said it was a strange girl.” 

“Vic took care of her,” Scott replied quietly, 
“but Jarred got her out and this morning he 
was dying as the result of it.” 

There was a hushed silence over the whole 
village. 

Scott was determined to hold his advantage. 
“Jarred promised that he would drop the feud 
if Foster was out of the way, and Foster is 
going to a place from which he will not return. 
Are you willing to drop it?” 

“I am more than willing,” Sewall said, “and 
258 


THE END OF THE FEUD 

have been for some time. Certainly, I per¬ 
sonally can never fight with Jarred’s people 
again,” and his voice shook with emotion. 

“How about the rest of you?” Scott asked 
looking* at the rest of the assembled family. 

They all agreed eagerly. They were afraid 
of Jarred and if he would stop fighting they 
were willing enough. 

“Are you willing to stand by Jarred’s prom¬ 
ise?” Scott asked, turning to the Morgans. 

They were as eager as the Waits. 

“Then shake hands on it,” Scott said, and he 
pulled Sewall and Ben Morgan towards each 
other. 

They shook hands solemnly and in five min¬ 
utes both families had almost forgotten that a 
feud had ever existed. They had all completely 
forgotten Foster. 

Scott suddenly remembered him and hur¬ 
ried over to the woodpile, but the marshal had 
taken advantage of his opportunity and spirited 
him away. 


CHAPTER XXIX 
JARRED AND SEWALL MEET 

A S soon as Scott was sure that the marshal 
* had made good his get-away with Foster 
he looked for Hopwood, but Hopwood had also 
disappeared. He could see nothing further 
that he could do there and turned down the 
road away from the village. He had not gone 
far when he heard some one walking fast be¬ 
hind him. It was Sewall. 

“Where are you going?” Sewall asked. 

“Up to Jarred’s” Scott replied. 

“So am I,” Sewall said. 

They walked in silence, each occupied with 
his own thoughts. Scott was wondering where 
the marshal had gone with his prisoner and 
whether they would have any trouble in con¬ 
victing him. Sewall was deeply moved by his 
walk up that road which was to him almost like 
a foreign country. His thoughts finally took 
the form of words. 


260 


JARRED AND SEWALL MEET 

“Do you know that I have been over this 
road only once before in thirty years, and that 
at night ?” 

Scott looked at him in astonishment. “Do 
you know Jarred ?” he asked suddenly. 

“Only by sight. I’ve seen him in the village 
once or twice, and once three years ago when 
he came up on our mountain,” Sewall said 
thoughtfully. 

“What did they have, a conference ?” Scott 
asked. 

“No, one of Foster’s boys threw a stone 
across the street and hurt Vic. Jarred rode 
straight up here after him and horsewhipped 
him in his own yard.” 

“I should not think he would have dared,” 
Scott exclaimed. “Where was Foster?” 

“In the house,” Sewall chuckled, “and he; 
stayed there. Jarred did not even look to see 
if he was in sight. He just licked the kid, 
turned his back on the house and rode away. 
From all I have heard, Jarred was never much 
afraid of anything.” 

“I have always admired him,” Scott said. 

“So have I,” Sewall confessed simply. 

261 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


Again they walked in silence. When they 
came to Jarred’s gate, Scott called softly and 
Hopwood appeared in the doorway. 

“How did you get here?” Scott asked in sur¬ 
prise. He never got used to Hopwood’s unex¬ 
pected movements. 

“I hurried up here to tell Vic that her mother 
was not seriously hurt,” Hopwood exclaimed. 

“How is Jarred?” Scott asked anxiously. 

Hopwood’s face brightened. “He seems 
much better. I believe he is going to get well.” 

“Can we see him?” Scott asked eagerly. 

“If you don’t make him talk too much,” Hop- 
wood consented reluctantly. He felt that it 
would be better not, but he could not refuse 
this man who had successfully accomplished 
what he had been trying in vain for years to do. 
He stepped aside to let them enter. 

They walked into the little cabin stepping 
softly. Vic was hovering protectingly around 
the bed. The old man was very weak, but his 
pride kept him from looking ill even now. A 
pleased light came into his eyes when he saw 
Scott. He started slightly at the unexpected 
sight of Sewall. Scott noticed it. 

26 2 


JARRED AND SEWALL MEET 

“Sewall could not wait for Foster and the 
marshal to get out of sight to come up to thank 
you for saving his child,” he explained. 

Sewall knelt appealingly beside the bed. 

Jarred smiled and feebly stretched out his 
hand. “I can easily be friends with Sewall,” 
he whispered. 

“I have always been your friend,” Sewall re¬ 
plied earnestly, “and I am coming to see you 
often if I may.” 

“With Foster in the penitentiary and you for 
my friend I can die in peace, but”—Jarred 
added with a faint smile—“I am not going to 
do it yet.” 

At a sign from Vic they left him as softly as 
they had come. Hopwood was waiting for 
them outside the door. 

“He is lots better,” Hopwood exclaimed, “but 
Vic wants to keep him quiet.” 

“She is right,” Scott said. “Are you going 
down with us?” 

Hopwood blushed a little. “No, I am going 
to stay here and see if I can be of any help to 
Vic.” 

“Do you want me to send for a doctor?” 

263 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


Scott asked. “I would be glad to get one from 
Asheville for Jarred.” 

Hopwood shook his head. “Jarred would 
not like it.” 

So they left Hopwood standing contentedly 
on call beside the door, and started slowly for 
the village. 

“Tell me,” Scott exclaimed, “why did Hop- 
wood wear that iron hat ? I have been wonder¬ 
ing about it ever since I came and he has always 
told me he would tell me later.” 

“He wanted to make his family think he was 
crazy,” Sewall explained. “Did he fool you?” 

“At first,” Scott admitted, “but not for long.” 

Sewall laughed. “He has more brains than 
anybody else in the family. He was crazy for 
a while after Foster struck him that time, and 
he began wearing the iron hat for protection. 
He soon got all right, but he was shrewd 
enough to see that he could hear a lot more and 
go wherever he pleased if they thought he was 
crazy. 

“Of course you know how crazy he is about 
Vic and Jarred. Well, he kept right on pre¬ 
tending to be crazy, and he did it so well that 
264 


JARRED AND SEWALL MEET 

he fooled them all completely. All the time, 
he was working tooth and nail to help Jarred.” 

“And you knew that all the time?” Scott 
asked. 

“Certainly. Jarred was in the right, and 
Foster has been wrong always,” Sewall ex¬ 
claimed. 

As they approached old man Sanders’ cabin 
they saw him waiting for them at the gate. 

“How is Jarred?” he called, as soon as they 
were near enough to hear him. 

“Lots better,” Scott said. 

“And is it true that Foster has gone to the 
penitentiary for life?” he asked eagerly. 

“He’s gone to the penitentiary, all right,” 
Scott said, “and we hope it will be for life.” 

“Good!” the old man exclaimed enthusiasti¬ 
cally. “I congratulate you, young man, on the 
way you kept neutral,” he added with a grin. 

“Well, it worked, anyway,” Scott retorted. 
He had noticed that Mr. Sanders had hardly 
spoken to Sewall, and he had thought that he 
would be surprised to see him. 

“You surely know Mr. Sewell Wait, don’t 
you, Mr. Sanders?” he asked. 

265 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 


“Reckon I do,” Mr. Sanders laughed. “He 
licked me at cribbage here last night.” 

Scott looked at Sewall indignantly. “I 
thought you told me that you had not been up 
this road for thirty years.” 

“That was above here,” Sewall laughed. “I 
sneak over here in the evening every once in a 
while to play cribbage with Mr. Sanders.” 

Scott was beginning to see what a hollow 
thing that feud really was, and yet it had killed 
several people, wounded many more and ruined 
the community for years. 

“Did Jarred know it?” he asked. 

Sewall nodded. “Sure. I have sat on the 
fence there and talked over the feud with Vic 
by the hour.” 

“Do you think Vic will give it up ?” he asked 
again. 

“Sure she will,” Sewall replied confidently. 
“She’ll marry Hopwood some day and forget 
there ever was a feud unless Foster comes back. 
She’ll never forgive him, and she’ll never for¬ 
give her father.” 

They left Mr. Sanders and went down to the 
logging camp. There Scott gave directions to 
266 


JARRED AND SEW ALL MEET 

MacAndrews to go on with the logging in the 
morning as usual, and told him that if he were 
short of help he could hire anybody around 
there. 

At the station he sent a telegram to his old 
boss in the forest service: 

“Feud ended. Place now foolproof for su¬ 
pervisors.” 

And when Mr. Roberts came home to supper 
that evening he brought the reply: 

“Good work. We are going to appoint you 
the next fool.” 

But Scott did not want that job till he had 
finished the one he had. He was deaf to the 
letters from Washington. A few days later, 
Mr. Johns arrived on the scene to plead with 
him in person. He listened with interest to 
Scott’s account of the struggle. 

“Well,” he said admiringly when Scott had 
finished his story, “you certainly turned the 
trick, all right. You pulled the Service out of 
a nasty hole and everybody appreciates it. Now 
we want you back as supervisor. It ought to 
be a peaceful enough job now, thanks to you.” 
267 


SCOTT BURTON IN THE BLUE RIDGE 

But Scott still shook his head. “Not till the 
last log is in here,” he said, waving his hand 
toward the mountain slope. 

“Pshaw,” Mr. Johns exclaimed impatiently, 
“anybody can run this logging outfit now.” 

“That's just it,” Scott replied quietly. “It 
has been hard enough work to get it to run 
smoothly, and now I am going to have the 
benefit of it. I am going to make a bunch of 
money off that contract, low as the bid was. 
When it is all over I will take back the job if 
you want me to; but I would rather go back to 
my old horse in Arizona.” 

“Well, we might even arrange that in time,” 
Mr. Johns said, “or maybe we could bring the 
horse here.” 

“That would be better,” came a quiet voice 
behind them, and they both started to find Hop- 
wood looking at Scott reproachfully. 

“You are right, Hopwood,” Scott replied 
gently. “I had forgotten you. I will at least 
come back when you and Vic are married. 
Let’s all go up to see Jarred and tell him the 
news.” 

0 ) 


THE END 




















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